Jack’s Camp

From the outside, the double tents at Jack’s Camp may appear simplistic, but once you enter you will discover a spacious and luxurious haven for you to relax in after a day of thrilling safari activities. The double tents consist of a bedroom with an extended king-size bed, a comfy lounge area and an en-suite bathroom. The lounge is furnished with plush armchairs, a large sofa and elegant day beds.

Guests can also enjoy the classic 1940s style decor, with Persian and North African rugs, paraffin lamps and traditional mahogany furniture. The en-suite bathrooms feature both indoor and outdoor showers, and outside you will find your own private verandah which overlooks the Kalahari as well as a refreshing plunge pool where you can escape from the heat. The rooms also feature an overhead bed cooling system to ensure the climate stays comfortable.

The twin tents include two queen-size four-poster beds in a spacious room, decorated with colourful rugs and stylish furniture. As with the double tents, the twin tents also feature a comfy lounge area and an en-suite bathroom. The lounge is furnished with plush armchairs, a large sofa and elegant day beds. Guests can also enjoy the classic 1940s style decor, with Persian and North African rugs, paraffin lamps and traditional mahogany furniture.

The en-suite bathrooms feature both indoor and outdoor showers, and outside you will find your own private verandah which overlooks the dramatic Kalahari Desert. Here, you can also escape from the heat by taking a dip in your private plunge pool. In addition, the rooms feature an overhead bed cooling system so that you can keep the room at your ideal temperature.

Guests can enjoy three meals a day, all freshly prepared by the camp’s chefs. Enjoy a light breakfast before venturing out for exciting morning safari activities, and return to a hearty lunch. Guests can look forward to a delicious three-course meal in the evenings which typically features a soup to start, and concludes with a tasty dessert.

Dining takes place in the elegantly designed mess tent, where guests can interact and swap fun stories about their trip. After dining, enjoy a refreshing beverage from the camp’s bar and relax with a game of pool, or sit out under the canopy of dazzling stars.

Embark on an exciting game drive and travel across the Kalahari Desert in a custom-made 4×4 safari vehicle. The safari vehicles are designed to seat a maximum of 6 guests at a time, ensuring everyone gets a full view of the incredible wildlife. Drive alongside thousands of zebra as you explore the Makgadikgadi Pans.

The private reserve is home to an array of animals that can be viewed in their natural habitat without any fences or barriers cutting you off from the amazing sights and dramatic hunts. Look out for the black-maned Kalahari lions, brown hyena and bat-eared foxes and learn about the extraordinary creatures that live in the Kalahari Desert from a professional guide.

Walk amongst the habituated meerkats that have made their homes around Jack’s Camp and watch these fun and quirky creatures as they scurry around on the hunt for scorpions and other tasty morsels. These friendly meerkats are used to human presence, and may even climb up and use you as a lookout point for watching for predators. Walks take place from sunrise and guests will be accompanied by one of the camp’s guides.

Meet traditional bushmen and accompany them on a guided walk where you will learn interesting facts and survival methods that have been carried down by the Zu/’hoasi Bushmen. Learn about Bushman heritage and culture, and experience traditional bushmen dances. Discover more about the fauna and flora of the harsh Makgadikgadi landscape from the experts who use this knowledge in order to survive.

Explore the untamed landscape of the Kalahari Desert just like the classic explorers did: on horseback. Enjoy the wind in your hair as you rush across the dramatic plains on the back of a gentle and well-trained horse, and lose yourself in the empty landscape of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.

Speed across the Makgadikgadi Pans on a morning quad bike ride and get a sense of the true size of this immense landscape. Once the huge Makgadikgadi Lake, the salt pans are all that remain. During the dry season, the salt-crusted ground is unable to grow any vegetation, creating a large empty space where guests immerse themselves in the peaceful and quiet atmosphere. This is a seasonal activity and is only available during the dry season.

Visit Chapman’s Baobab, a colossal baobab tree that was discovered by the explorer James Chapman in 1852. Guests can climb over its branches and get a sense of the tree’s mighty size. The ancient tree is one of the three largest and oldest trees in Africa. Sadly, it now lies sprawled across the plains after the tree’s trunk split and it came crashing to the ground in 2016.

Jack’s Camp is a Natural Selection camp. Natural Selection supports the vision of the Botswana Community and Conservation Initiative (BCCI), which provides regional conservation and support for rural communities to develop sustainable land-use practices that promote conservation-based economic opportunities, facilitate landscape-scale wildlife movements, and provide for climate change resilience.

Natural Selection has also partnered with Coaching Conservation ‘to provide local people with the critical information they need to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic.’

‘Over the last three years, 1.5% of every guest’s stay in [Natural Selection’s] camps has gone towards community and conservation projects. Combined with the direct contributions that [Natural Selection’s] camps make to local community outreach, this amounts to nearly 1 million USD of committed funds.’

Natural Selections has been working with the local Khwai Village in order to identify needs within the community and create solutions. Natural Selections have launched a number of projects to do this, such as the Feed A Child programme which provides schoolchildren with a healthy vitamin-rich meal at the start of the school day, setting up a pre-school in Khwai Village and providing an income for the teachers, supporting the village elders and disabled members of the community, and providing homes with electricity using solar power.

Natural Selections’ initiatives not only help the local communities but inspires the local villagers to see ecotourism in a positive light, helping to prevent human and animal conflict.

The increase in the number of elephants in the Okavango Delta in recent years is a cause for celebration. However, for villagers along the Delta’s panhandle and outskirts, the sudden boost in elephant numbers means that their land is more likely to be trampled and humans may be at risk of fatal encounters.

Natural Selection has recognised that transportation for local communities is a need, and they worked with EcoExist and the Okavango Community Trust to launch the ‘Elephant Express’ in January 2020. The ‘Elephant Express’ service transports children to schools safely, as well as helping patients get to clinics without the fear of crossing paths with a gigantic elephant.

Natural Selection ensures that 1.5% of your expedition fees goes to wildlife conservation. They also work with the local communities, governments and conservation organisations in order to help protect conservation areas, and sustain them. The camps that are built are subtle and blend in with the environment and the habitats that already exist there, causing minimal disruption to the surrounding wildlife.

Natural Selection started the Etosha Heights Rhino Protection program which is an anti-poaching group that monitor Rhinos, and ensure that poachers are unable to illegally hunt these endangered creatures.

‘We take rhino conservation extremely seriously, and the Etosha Heights team work tirelessly to safeguard the future of these bushveld unicorns and ensure that many more generations can enjoy watching them. Within the reserve, we have an anti-poaching camp and team that are dedicated to protecting the rhinos and preventing any illegal hunting from happening along the boundaries of the reserve’.

‘Our rangers are on the ground 24 hours a day and have completed an intensive training programme to ensure that they’re the best of the best. Combined with new state of the art anti-poaching surveillance technology, this team is a force to be reckoned with.’

Jack’s Camp is powered by solar energy, helping to reduce the camp’s carbon emissions. Natural Selections also design and build their camps to work around the environments and habitats that already exist there. They work to make camps that are not too obvious so that they can blend into their surroundings and disrupt the wildlife as little as possible.