QUINS FAVOURITE LODGES/CAMPS IN AFRICA

(for 2026, and for people who like their safaris a little bit wild)

There’s something about a camp or lodge in Africa that hits different.

They’re all built for the same idea - sleep, eat, look at animals - but each one has its own personality. Some are perfect on paper but fall flat in real life. Others are a bit rough around the edges but get under your skin in a way you can’t shake.

I get asked all the time, “So Quin, what’s your favourite camp?”

And honestly, picking one is impossible. A place isn’t just about the bed and the bar. For me, a camp has to tick a few big boxes:

Tswalu Loapi

What Makes a Camp or Lodge Special (for me anyway) 1. Location with a pulse

I don’t care if the game viewing is “the best on the planet” if the place doesn’t feel right.

I want a location that makes you wake up before your alarm because you’re fizzing to get out there. A place that feels a bit primitive in the best way - where you stand there, coffee in hand, thinking:

“This must be what it felt like a hundred years ago.”

If a camp can’t give you that, it’s already fighting uphill. 2. Guiding that actually guides

You can have the most insane sightings and the fanciest suite in Africa, but if your guide is average, the whole trip falls flat. Guides set the tone. They read the bush, read their guests, and know when to sit quietly and when to roll the dice and push. I’m fussy about guiding - to the point where I’ll sometimes request specific guides for my guests.

The best lodges invest in training, hold high standards, and don’t just hand anyone a steering wheel and a rifle and call it a day. 3. Hospitality with proper heart

You know when a camp gets it right? When the staff aren’t just going through the motions, but actually enjoy having you there.

The little things matter:

• Remembering Bob likes lemon in his sparkling water.

• Knowing Lucy only drinks Cab Sav with dinner.

• Spotting you eyeing the biscuits and quietly making sure they’re there for tea tomorrow.

That kind of attentive, joyful hospitality shouldn’t be reserved for the ultra-high-end stuff. In my mind, it should be the standard, no matter the price tag. 4. How the camp uses its surroundings

You can be in the most beautiful corner of Africa, but if the lodge is built like a bunker, what’s the point?

I love camps that let you soak it all in from everywhere - from the deck, from your bed, from the pool. A place where you can watch elephants from the breakfast table or lie in bed listening to hippos arguing outside.

Most people spend a small fortune just getting to these remote spots. The camp should be designed to make every minute there count, not just the game drive hours. 5. The wildlife (of course)

What you want to see will change from person to person - leopards, wild dogs, big herds, birds, or just the feeling of space.

But one thing stays the same: There’s no point spending that kind of money to stare at more vehicles than animals. I’d rather have slightly harder work for sightings in a wild, quiet area than a “guarantee” with traffic jams at every lion.

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So, with all of that in mind, here are my top 5 favourite camps in Africa for 2026 - places that, for me, nail that mix of wild, comfortable, and properly unforgettable. 5. Rattray’s Camp – MalaMala, Sabi Sands

This place is old-school safari royalty.

Rattray’s sits on the banks of the Sand River in one of the most iconic private reserves on the continent - MalaMala - stitched seamlessly to the Kruger with no fences, no nonsense, just proper wild country.

You’ve got:

• Suites with plunge pools big enough to drown your stress.

• Massive decks and serious privacy - half the time you feel like you’ve got the whole reserve to yourself.

• A riverfront position where something is always happening: elephants crossing, lions sleeping, general game drifting through like it’s their personal catwalk.

The area itself is leopard central. Big cats here don’t just show up, they perform. Vehicle density is well controlled, the traversing area is huge, and you get that old-guard safari feel: heritage, history, and a whole lot of wild still baked into the place.

It’s the kind of camp a guide dreams of showing off - polished but not pretentious, with game viewing that feels almost unfair at times.

4. Tswalu Loapi – Kalahari

Now we head into the Kalahari – red dunes, big skies, and that dry, clean silence that hits you harder than any city noise ever could.

Loapi is like someone took the idea of “remote luxury” and cranked it all the way up:

• Each Loapi home is its own mini camp - no neighbours, no sharing walls, no awkward dining with strangers unless you ask for it.

• Canvas-and-steel architecture that feels modern but still rooted in the desert.

• Your own private guide, private chef, private vehicle - you run on your own schedule, full stop.

The wildlife is pure Kalahari drama:

Black-maned lions on the ridges, cheetah weaving through the grass, oryx and springbok painting the plains, and then the real celebrities - aardvark and pangolin - shuffling out after dark like they own the place.

Loapi is rugged and refined at the same time. It’s the kind of safari where you can vanish into the wild, eat like a king, and still feel like the desert is the main character, not you.

3. Little Mombo Okavango Delta, Botswana

Little Mombo sits on Chief’s Island in the Okavango Delta, which is basically predator central with AC and cold drinks.

The camp is perched on raised decks overlooking floodplains that always seem to have something happening:

• Elephants wandering past camp like they’re checking the wine list.

• Lechwe splashing through channels.

• Lions and leopards are doing what lions and leopards do best.

The suites are pure, high-end safari indulgence: linen and wood, big open fronts, expansive views that make it feel like you’re living in a National Geographic spread somebody forgot to close.

Game drives here are a blur of:

• Leopards draped in trees.

• Lion prides on the move.

• Hyena clans lurking on the edges.

• A ridiculous amount of plain game that acts like paid extras.

Then you roll back into camp, dust in your hair, camera full, and someone hands you a cold drink as the Okavango lights up in that gold, syrupy sunset.

Little Mombo isn’t just luxurious – it feels like wilderness royalty. You’re spoilt rotten, sure, but you never forget where you are. The wild is always just there, right on the edge of camp, watching.

2. Kutali Camp Classic Zambia, Lower Zambezi

Kutali is my number one because it hits every note I care about - and then some. Set under towering winterthorn trees along one of the quietest, most beautiful stretches of the Zambezi River, Kutali feels like stepping into an older version of Africa that somehow dodged the rush to modernise.

Mornings start soft:

• First light sifting through the winterthorns.

• Elephants drifting between the trunks like ghosts.

• The river slides past, slow and heavy, like it’s been carrying secrets for centuries.

The camp itself is simple in the best way:

Canvas tents, comfortable beds, bucket showers that feel like a ritual, and just enough comfort to keep you rested without ever dulling the edge of the wild. You get dust on your boots, smoke in your clothes, stars in your neck from staring up for too long.

The staff are the real magic.

They’re warm, sharp, funny, and effortlessly professional. The kind of people who:

• Remember your drink after one night.

• Laugh with you around the fire.

• Know when to chat and when to leave you alone with the river and your thoughts.

They live and breathe that valley. They know the moods of the Zambezi, the elephant routes, the best channels to paddle, and when that lion pride is likely to slip down to drink.

Days at Kutali slide between:

• Gentle canoe trips along the channels with hippos grumbling nearby.

• Walks under the winterthorns, reading stories written in the dust.

• Unhurried game drives where you’re not chasing a checklist, just letting the valley show you what it wants to.

Nights are fireside, with the dark pressing in, hyenas whooping in the distance, and the odd elephant browsing quietly just beyond the glow.

There’s no rush, no overcomplicated “experience menu”, no hard sell. Just old-school river magic, good people, and proper wild Africa doing its thing around you.

Kutali feels less like a camp you visit and more like a place you return to, even if it’s your first time there.

1. Mwaleshi Camp North Luangwa, Zambia

Mwaleshi is where you go when “I want something wild” actually means wild.

There are no game drive vehicles buzzing around, no crowds, no over-designed architecture. Just:

• A handful of reed-and-thatch chalets.

• A remote stretch of the Mwaleshi River.

• North Luangwa’s raw, remote wilderness presses in from every direction.

Out here, walking safaris aren’t a side activity - they’re the main event. You track lion on foot, follow Cookson’s wildebeest through the dust, listen to the bush speaking in bird calls and alarm snorts.

You trade Wi-Fi for wild dogs.

You trade hot tubs for that cold trickle of adrenaline down your spine when you realise those tracks are fresh.

The guiding is the real luxury here. These are old-school bush people who know every bend in the river, every mopane grove, every story written in the sand.

Mwaleshi is Africa unfiltered. At night, you sit around the fire, feeling very small in the best possible way, with the Milky Way burning overhead and the bush talking all around you.