Four new partner properties have joined Nxai Stay, each chosen with the same care and the same criteria that shaped every decision around Zoroga: owner-run or family-managed, personally invested in the landscapes and communities around them, and delivering a quality of experience that has nothing to do with luxury for its own sake and everything to do with how a guest feels when it's time to say goodbye and the impact they leave behind them.
These are properties run by people who, like us, built something from the ground up and care deeply about what it has become, and that care is present in every detail of the experience they offer.
The circuit now stretches across five of Botswana's most compelling destinations. Zoroga holds the Makgadikgadi, that vast, ancient, humbling landscape that has always been Nxai Travel's spiritual home. The four new properties extend the reach of the circuit into the northern panhandle of the Okavango Delta, the permanent waterways of the Delta's heartland, the wildlife-saturated banks of the Boteti River on the western edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and the extraordinary Chobe River frontage in Kasane.
For self-drivers, overlanders and independent travellers planning a Botswana journey, this represents something that has been genuinely missing from the middle-market: a connected, curated and trusted set of accommodation options that covers the country's most iconic regions with properties that feel entirely at home in their surroundings. Here they are...
First up is
Bushmen Plains Camp Ola which occupies a 150,000ha wilderness concession in the northern panhandle of the Okavango Delta, in a part of Botswana that most travellers never reach and those who do tend never to forget.
Only a handful of camps exist within this vast and largely unvisited landscape, and what sets Bushmen Plains apart from all of them is a cultural dimension rooted in the living knowledge of the Bukakwe Bushmen, whose connection to the panhandle stretches back further than any map or any record can account for.
Morning and night game drives with exclusive off-road access bring guests into contact with iconic wildlife species, a concession that the guides know with an intimacy that no amount of training can manufacture. Mokoro excursions through lily-filled channels and crystal-clear lagoons add the water dimension that the Okavango demands. And the cultural experience, covering tracking skills, medicinal plant knowledge and survival techniques passed down through generations of San for whom this landscape is not a destination but a home, delivers.
To spend time here is to understand the Delta in an entirely different and considerably deeper way than a standard safari itinerary allows.
Cha Cha Metsi sits on the Gama Tau Lagoon, a permanently flowing waterway within the Santantadibe River system in the heart of the Okavango Delta, and the fact of that permanence shapes the entire experience. Most of the Delta is seasonal, its channels rising and retreating with the annual flood from Angola, but Cha Cha Metsi's lagoon holds its water throughout the year, which means mokoro excursions are available in every season and the wildlife that depends on permanent water is present with a consistency that most Delta camps simply cannot guarantee.
Built around decades of accumulated love for this particular corner of the Okavango, the camp carries the warmth of a family home rather than the anonymity of a designed lodge, with antiques and heirlooms giving the communal spaces a personality that no interior designer could have planned.
Horse safaris for experienced riders offer a perspective on the Delta that very few camps anywhere in Botswana can provide, and the kitchen's commitment to celebrating African cuisine with genuine creativity and pride means the dining experience holds its own alongside everything else on offer.
Children of all ages are welcome, which is rarer in the Delta than it ought to be, and the camp can be taken over entirely for families or groups wanting an exclusive Okavango experience.
Camelthorn Farmstead sits on the banks of the Boteti River on the western boundary fence of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, a few kilometres from the Khumaga entrance gate, and the decision that defines it above all others is one that its owners make every year with no expectation of recognition: they pump water into the Boteti at their own expense to keep the river active through the dry season.
The wildlife that this sustained water source draws to the farmstead's viewing deck is extraordinary by any measure. Elephant in concentrations that consistently stop guests mid-sentence, zebra and wildebeest moving through in numbers that speak directly to the health of this ecosystem, hippo working the shallows, crocodile on the banks and a diversity of birdlife that makes the deck one of the most productive birding spots on this stretch of river at any time of year.
Private campsites, en-suite tented accommodation and a self-catering cottage with both catered and self-catering options give Camelthorn a flexibility and accessibility that makes it a natural fit for the full range of travellers the Nxai Stay circuit is designed to serve, and the Khumaga gate is close enough to make a full day's self-drive into Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, and the zebra migration that moves through it between April and December, entirely straightforward.
Chobe Bakwena Eco Lodge on the banks of the Chobe River in Kasane has spent years building a reputation for ecological integrity, exceptional personal service and the kind of consistent quality that the World Travel Awards recognised in both 2024 and 2025. The eco-credentials are genuine rather than aspirational: a swimming pool filtered entirely by plants and gravel, buildings constructed from renewable natural resources and a set of values that run through every operational decision the owners make.
Game drives into Chobe National Park, where elephant congregate in concentrations that make the word herd feel entirely inadequate, river cruises on one of the most wildlife-abundant stretches of water in Africa, village walkabouts and cycle tours that give any stay genuine cultural depth and an optional day trip to Victoria Falls combine to make Bakwena one of the most versatile and complete properties on the circuit.
For guests travelling the Nxai Stay route from the Makgadikgadi northward, Chobe Bakwena is the natural and deeply satisfying final chapter.
The Nxai Stay circuit exists because Botswana deserves to be experienced by more people, and because the properties that deliver the most memorable experiences are very often the ones run by people who put everything they have into a single, deeply loved place. These five properties together form something genuinely worth travelling for.
Our team can build any combination of them into a self-drive itinerary, a fully guided journey, or a fly-in safari that drops guests directly into the landscapes they've been dreaming about. However you choose to travel, the circuit is ready, the properties are exceptional and the best of Botswana is waiting.
