For the first time in 35 years, Wilderness Mombo on Botswana’s Chief’s Island now offers night drives, boating and mokoro excursions alongside its traditional game drives.
Wilderness Mombo, the flagship camp on Chief’s Island in Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve, is now offering guests wildlife viewing by land and water for the first time since it opened in 1991. The change follows a combination of new park regulations and exceptionally high seasonal water levels this year.
Mombo has long been rated among Botswana’s top wildlife destinations, known for the high prey and predator densities on its private traversing area within Chief’s Island. Until now, access was limited to daytime 4×4 game drives under Moremi Game Reserve park rules, and the channels around camp were not navigable for boating.
Two changes have converged this year to lift both restrictions: regulatory updates now permit after-dark land activities on Chief’s Island, while unusually high water levels — driven by strong local rainfall and the seasonal inflow from Angola’s highlands — have reconnected the floodplains and channels around camp, making them passable by boat and mokoro.
“For more than three decades, the Mombo story has been told from the seat of a game-drive vehicle,” says Wilderness’ Simon Stobbs. “Now our guests can head out after dark on a night drive, and glide across the reconnected channels by mokoro or boat. It’s truly spectacular to see the Delta like this — the same Place of Plenty, but a whole new way to experience it.”
Night drives put guests out after dark, when genets, civets and springhares are active alongside Mombo’s resident lions and hyenas. Boating departs from Kubu Jetty on a dedicated six-seater boat with a covered canvas canopy, run as an alternative to an afternoon game drive, with snacks and refreshments included. Mokoro excursions — poled by experienced guides in traditional-style canoes — offer quieter access to the newly flooded channels.
For travellers from Asia, the addition gives an already established fly-in itinerary — Mombo sits inside the Okavango Delta, reached via light aircraft from Maun — a wider range of activities within a single stay, without adding destinations to the trip.
The new activities are available to guests staying at Wilderness Mombo and Wilderness Little Mombo, with a minimum age of 16 for all three. All are seasonal and subject to water levels, availability, weather and operational conditions, so travelers planning a stay around them should confirm current conditions with Wilderness or a travel advisor before booking.
Known to guides as Mmadikampa, or “Mother of all Camps,” Mombo marks 35 years of operation this year. The camp has not announced an end date for the expanded activity offering.
If you’re contemplating a luxury safari, be sure to check our guides to the best luxury safari lodges and camps in the Okavango Delta, the Masai Mara, the Serengeti, and Rwanda, read about what a luxury safari in Botswana is like, know what to bring with our safari travel packing guide, and prepare to dazzle with our guide to safari photography.
