Where elephants roam and martinis flow: Inside Belmond’s ultra-glam Botswana safari
Savute is a love letter to the wild, while offering the trimmings of a five-star hotel
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be pampered while elephants parade past your breakfast table, and lions lull you to sleep with guttural lullabies, Belmond’s safari lodges in Botswana have the answer — with added panache, proper linens, and just enough danger to keep things spicy.
Our journey begins at Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge, deep in the Chobe National Park. Picture this: you arrive by light aircraft, step onto a dusty airstrip and your driver greets you with an iced flannel, sparkling wine and a grin. Within 10 minutes, you move to sipping rosé on a deck overlooking a waterhole where an actual elephant is quenching its thirst. It’s like The Lion King but with better skincare.
Savute is a love letter to the wild, while offering the trimmings of a five-star hotel. There are 12 tented suites, each the size of a London flat, and stocked with everything a guest could want: air con, a double shower and a mini bar generous enough to host a party. At night, the soundtrack is a bass-heavy mix of roars, cackles and the occasional groan — but that might have been our all-LGBTQ+ group.
“The guides are charming, unflappable and knowledgeable — like RuPaul’s Drag Race judges, but in khaki”
The game drives are the main event. Forget queuing for brunch — here, you rise before dawn after coffee is delivered to your room by torchlight, swaddle yourself in designer safari beige and board your open-air chariot. Within a few short hours, we see a leopard emerge from long grass within touching distance, a pride of lions feasting on a former antelope, and a giraffe so close you could discuss mascara brands. The guides are charming, unflappable and knowledgeable — like RuPaul’s Drag Race judges, but in khaki.
After two days of cinematic wilderness, we hop on a short flight to Belmond Eagle Island Lodge, dramatically set in the Okavango Delta. If Savute is ruggedly chic, Eagle Island is its sultry sibling: more water, more birds, more excuses to don a flowy linen shirt and pretend you’re in Out of Africa — or at least a campaign shoot for Tom Ford.
Eagle Island offers a cast of elephants and zebra and introduces mokoros, the traditional dugout canoes steered by polers who are equal parts gondolier and David Attenborough. Gliding through the reeds at sunset, drink in hand, I feel a wave of calm — or perhaps it’s the gin. Either way, it is bliss. There are fewer big cats here, but the romance of the delta more than compensates. Think herons, buffalo and a family of hippos.
“It’s safari, made fabulous”
The lodge itself is a dream: thatched-roof suites with plunge pools, enormous beds, and indoor/outdoor everything. The bar is shaped like a canoe (why not?), serves magnificent martinis made using local Okavango spirits and dinners are candlelit feasts under the stars.
Botswana is not cheap, and neither is Belmond (part of LVMH) — but this isn’t about ticking off the Big Five. It’s about surrendering to a rhythm older and grander than your inbox. It’s about lions at breakfast, birdsong at dusk, and the sweet, improbable joy of being both utterly remote and completely sated.
It’s safari, made fabulous.
This feature appears in Attitude’s January/February 2026 issue.
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