Duba Plains Camp

one of the very best safari camps in Africa

Duba Plains Camp is located in the Duba Concession in the Okavango Delta area of northern Botswana.

The camp is centred on an open-sided structure under canvas, which contains comfortable lounge and dining areas, leading out to decks with two small swimming pools and a campfire area.

One aspect we always appreciate is the amount of wildlife that can come into camp. The most obvious animals here are the kudus and elephants which can be seen wandering between the tents during the day. One guest described how she woke up after a siesta by the pool to find herself surrounded by a family of warthogs. At night there is a wonderful chorus of frogs and hippos, backed by the occasional roars of the local lions.

Rooms

Guest accommodation is in six very comfortable tents, approached along a network of ground-level pathways. The rooms take the form of conventional Meru tents, raised up on low decks, with a small verandah out front, sliding wooden doors into a small but pleasant bedroom, with a decent bathroom behind featuring conventionally plumbed basins, shower and toilet. The bed is fitted with a large mosquito net and cooled by a ceiling fan. Unusually the camp provides a top quality set of binoculars to each room for you to use throughout your stay.

One major standout feature of this camp is that the bedrooms are fitted with solar powered, environmentally sensitive, mini air-conditioning units which maintain comfortable temperatures within the mosquito net, which is highly appreciated during the hotter months of Sep/Nov.

Activities

Duba Plains Camp provides the following guided activities …

• Vehicle safari
• Motorboat safari (May-Aug)
• Helicopter safari (not included)
• Night vehicle safari

When it comes to trip shapes and durations in Botswana, most visitors combine 2, 3 or 4 lodges by light aircraft over 6-12 nights, one or two of which will usually be here in Okavango Delta, combined with the Linyanti Waterfront and/or Makgadikgadi areas.

These trips are often done in combination with further nights at the Victoria Falls and/or down in the Cape.

The usual stay duration in this Okavango Duba Plains area is 3-4 nights.

Seasonality

The Duba Concession offers reasonably strong wildlife viewing year round, but with considerable seasonal variations.

The May-Sep cool dry season is the classic time to visit, as the wildlife viewing is superb, with the animals being drawn in from the dry hinterland towards the rising floodwaters, which arrive early into this more westerly location.

During the transition period between the peak of the dry season and the start of the green season, Oct-Dec, the Duba area can become a real epicentre for wildlife activity, with the convergence of big herds of herbivores. This is the hot season and humidities are becoming uncomfortably high as the rains approach. When the rains break, the wildlife disperse quickly into the vast hinterlands in search of better grazing and becomes much more difficult to access.

During the Jan-Apr main season, the bush is verdant and beautiful, the animals are well-fed and there’s lots of wildflowers and baby animals around. The camps are significantly discounted and become increasingly attractive as the conditions improve through the period.

Getting there

Duba Plains Camp can only be accessed by light aircraft into the nearby airstrip, which has daily flight connections with all other camps in Okavango, Linyanti, the main airport at Maun (for connections to Central Kalahari, Nxai, Makgadikgadi and Johannesburg) and north to Kasane (for connections to Livingstone and Victoria Falls).

From the airstrip it is a drive of around 15 minutes through the bush to the camp itself.

usually combined with at least one other camp in Botswana