Where Selinda Explorers sits
Selinda Explorers Camp stands on the banks of the Selinda Spillway in the private Selinda Reserve in northern Botswana. The Spillway is the channel linking the Okavango and Linyanti systems, and the camp is set in what the reserve describes as prime predator habitat, on the water’s edge.
Four tents
There are four canvas tents: three standard guest tents and one two-bedroom family tent. Each has a bedroom, a private covered veranda and a private bathroom with hot showers and flush toilets, and all sit on raised wooden platforms. Four tents makes this one of the smallest camps in Botswana.
The style
The camp is deliberately built as a 1930s-style expedition camp: campaign furniture made from recycled hardwoods, furnishings brought from Zanzibar, Persian carpets, brass and copper. The phrase the operator uses is bush elegance with a relaxed style, and that is a fair description — it is comfortable without being formal.
How it differs from Selinda Camp
Selinda Explorers sits in Great Plains’ Explorer Collection rather than its Reserve Collection. It is the more affordable and more experiential of the two camps on the same reserve: same wildlife, same guiding, simpler and more adventurous accommodation. Travellers choosing between them are really choosing between comfort and character.
Game drives
Safari drives run early in the morning and again in the late afternoon and early evening. As a private reserve, Selinda is not bound by national park hours, and vehicle numbers are very low.
Guided bush walks
Guided walks are a core part of the offering here rather than an occasional extra. For a camp built around the idea of exploring, walking is the activity that most defines it.
Canoeing the Spillway
Canoeing on the Selinda Spillway runs seasonally, during the winter floods. Paddling a channel that only flows in some years is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to do, and it is the signature activity of this camp.
Birding
Birding is strong along the Spillway, where water, reedbed and riverine woodland run alongside each other. The canoes make an excellent birding platform when the water is up.
Sundowners
Sundowners are run out on the reserve, and the camp’s small size means these are genuinely private rather than a set-piece for a large group.
Who it suits
Travellers who want a small, characterful camp on a private reserve, who value walking and canoeing as much as game drives, and who would rather spend on the experience than on the fittings. The two-bedroom family tent makes it workable for a family, and the whole camp is small enough for a group to take over.
