Tubu Tree Camp

elegant hospitality and gentle safari activities

Tubu Tree Camp is located in the Jao Concession in the Okavango Delta area of northern Botswana.

The camp offers very high levels of service, with a warm welcome on arrival, personalised notes in your room and a high level of professionalism and attention to detail throughout.

It is a very comfortable little place with an unusually strong sense of identity, the staff proudly declare themselves part of “The Tubu Team”.

Stylish public areas are approached up steps from the vehicle turnaround. Immediately to the left is a small gift-shop, whilst a little further on the main areas open up, with a lounge to the left and a dining room to the right, leading out and down to a lovely bar, with swimming pool and campfire areas beyond.

The camp has a resident bull elephant called Frank, who needs to be approached with care, but who will often permit guests to get very close indeed.

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Tubu Tree Camp is in eight large and very comfortable guest tents, accessed along raised board-walks and elevated on decks, all with private bathrooms. Note that the adjacent Little Tubu Camp only has three rooms, so it is even more intimate.

Activities

Tubu Tree Camp provides the following guided activities …

• Vehicle safari
• Mokoro canoe safari (May-Sep)
• Motorboat safari (May-Sep)
• Walking safari
• Night vehicle safari
• Sleep-out hide

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 the Jao Flats area is 3-5 nights.

Seasonality

The Jao Flats Concession is particularly good during the flood season, not quite so strong at other times.

The May-Jun flood season is generally considered to be a great time to visit. Temperatures can drop towards freezing during the night, but this has little adverse effect on safari and most camps are significantly discounted during this period. During the high flood camps in the wetter areas are usually able to offer boating activities. The other camps continue to be able to offer vehicle safari, largely on Hunda Island, where leopard sightings are famously reliable.

The Jul-Sep dry season is the classic time to visit the Okavango Delta and is considered to be the best time for wildlife viewing. On the Jao Concession, the floodwaters recede and open up more dry land for vehicle safari, improving the reliability of sightings. There usually remains enough water for all camps to continue to offer boating activities, although this can start to become seriously limited into September.

The Oct-Dec hot season represents the transition to the start of the rains and temperatures and humidities can become uncomfortably high in advance of the rains. With the floods having receded in most areas, the wildlife tends to become very concentrated around the few remaining water sources, making for very strong wildlife viewing. Boating activities are now only possible in the limited network of permanent deepwater channels.

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

Tubu Tree Camp can only be accessed by light aircraft into the nearby Jao 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 short five minute drive down to the water and a further ten minutes by motorboat into the lodge.

usually combined with at least one other camp in Botswana