Jao Camp is set in the pristine wilderness of the Jao Flats, on the western side of the fabulous Okavango Delta, only accessible by light aircraft.
Top lodge
This is a genuinely high quality safari lodge, with beautiful designer interiors and elegantly serviced to the very highest standards, including fabulous food.
Flood season wildlife
During the May-Jul early flood season, the Jao Flats come alive with large herds of semi-aquatic antelopes and their attendant predators.
Jao Camp is one of a handful of super-luxury properties here in Botswana that are under the same ownership and are therefore commonly combined with each other.
Others in this same elevated family include Mombo Camp, Vumbura Plains Camp and Kings Pool Camp.
The Jao Flats is a magnificent part of the western Okavango Delta, an area largely comprised of open seasonal floodplains, with some limited permanent islands.
During the early flood season, May-Jul, the lechwe antelopes gather here in huge herds, accompanied by their attendant predators. This is certainly our favourite time to visit.
The handful of lodges on this concession are all under the same ownership. Of these, Jao Camp is the luxury flagship operation, a gorgeous designer creation, perfect for guests who are as interested in the quality of the property, the hosting and the food service, as they are in the core safari experience.
We tend to include Jao Camp in trips rather less often than nearby Tubu Tree Camp, Kwetsani Camp and Pelo Camp. The two main reasons are the undeniably high prices and a feeling that the safari activities are a little too gentle for the majority of our guests.
However, when we do have guests who are a perfect match for Jao Camp, we know that they will be extremely well looked after. It's certainly an extremely high quality property.
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Jao Camp is located on the Okavango Jao Concession.The camp is centred on a large two storey structure in a pretty ebony grove.There is also a small gym and spa.Guest accommodation is in seven lavish rooms with eco-friendly air-conditioning systems.Activities include vehicle safari, motorboat safari, walking safari and night vehicle safari.The primary activity is vehicle safari, by day and night.Mokoro canoe safari is usually possible during the high water months of May-Oct.Motorboat safari is also at its best during May-Sep.Walking safari is also possible, but tends to be quite low key.The best time of year is the May-Sep dry season, although there are reasons to visit during other months.
Set in the west of the Okavango Delta, Duba Plains Camp is owned by a different company, but is to a similar quality.
This camp is less well known and arguably more upmarket than Mombo.
The safari experience here is also a little more intense and involving.
Splash Camp
Coming in at under half the price of Mombo, Splash Camp is much simpler, but still very comfortable.
If you are looking for a more intense safari experience, with a particular focus on predator action, then this is a great option, one that our less luxury-focused guests really appreciate.
Jao Camp is one of the most expensive lodges in Africa. A night here will set you back a remarkable USD 3000-4000 per person. There are many lower cost options,
Gentle safari
The safari activities at Jao are likely to be relatively easy, optimised to guests who are looking for a relaxing luxury vacation rather than a more adventurous safari.
Lack of availability
Despite the prices, Jao Camp continues to be massively over-demanded. During the Jun-Oct high season, it's best to book at least nine months in advance.
Jao Camp can be combined with any of the other lodges in Botswana and further afield ...
Victoria Falls
A few days at the Victoria Falls can work really well at the front end of a Botswana safari, there’s some lovely lodges, the falls are impressive and there’s loads of other interesting activities in the area.
Located to the north of Okavango, the Linyanti Waterfront is another fabulous safari area, renowned for big herds of elephants and buffaloes, plus prodigious predator action.
Located to the southeast of Okavango, Makgadikgadi is a desert area of enormous salt pans, with quadbike expeditions, habituated meerkats, Bushman interaction and palaeontology and green season migration herds.
The Okavango Delta has around 75 safari lodges, almost all of which are wonderfully remote and high quality.
We are able to include any of these properties in your trip. We ones most like to recommend fall into two categories …
Firstly, there are the truly high-end lodges, which are in the very best locations and offer the highest levels of guiding, hospitality and consistency, suitable for demanding guests. Examples include Duba Plains Camp and Mombo Camp.
Secondly, there are the relatively good value camps, which are also in excellent locations and also take their guiding very seriously, but which typically offer lower levels of luxury and have the potential to be slightly less consistent in their delivery, suitable for more easy-going guests. A couple of real favourites are Splash Camp and Kweene Trails.
The properties that we generally prefer to avoid in Okavango are the camps which are either heavily over-priced or which offer safari activities which are too flaccid (which is surprisingly widespread). We also prefer not to include any of the lodges which are located in the busy public access areas.
You can always expect absolute honesty from us when describing the various lodges and camps. Our primary motivation is to figure out which ones will suit you the best.
3 to 5 nights
For shorter trips, it is more than possible to fly into Johannesburg and connect out to the Okavango Delta for as few as 3 to 5 nights, something that we often do for guests who are visiting the region on business.
6 to 12 nights
Most of our guests tend to deploy 6 to 12 nights on safari in Botswana. At the shorter end, we are talking about a combination of two camps, usually in Okavango Delta and Linyanti Waterfront. At the longer end, we tend to combine three or four camps, usually adding a contrasting desert area like Makgadikgadi or Central Kalahari.
13 to 28 nights
For longer trips most people will start to combine with other countries. The most common extension is Cape Town, the Cape Winelands and the Whale Coast, which are all great value. Botswana can easily be preceded by Victoria Falls and combined with further safari in Zambia, Zimbabwe or the Kruger area of South Africa.
Safari in Botswana ranges from relatively pricey to eye-watering expensive. During the Jul-Oct dry season it is the most expensive in Africa, whilst the Nov-Mar period can be genuinely great value. You can expect to spend USD 600 to 4200 per person per night
We are more than happy to work across this range of prices. The only important thing is that we help you find the very best safari to suit your budget.
The three dominant price factors are the time of year that you travel, the length of time that you spend on safari and the specific lodges that you choose to include in your trip.
If you have a higher budget, we will help you determine which camps do actually deliver elevated levels of service and experience. We will also highlight other subtle ways in which your trip can be elevated to another level, including the use of whole camp bookings, private guides and vehicles, helicopter explorations of remote areas etc.
If you have a medium budget, the best ways to keep a lid on costs are to travel out of the Jul-Oct dry season and to carefully choose lower-priced lodges. You can also reduce the number of core safari nights and deploy time in more cost-effective beach, town and rural locations. We will help you understand where to trim and where to splash in order to achieve the best overall experience.
If you have a lower budget, then talk to us about last minute booking options, which can deliver some extraordinary discounts. Failing that, we can always look at other fundamentally less pricey safari countries.
Luxury trips
Our luxury trips to Botswana combine lodges which are in prime locations, where high levels of comfort and service are guaranteed. This does not necessarily mean infinity pools and spa facilities, but it does always mean that you will be hosted and guided by the very best people in the country. That is how to truly guarantee the quality of a safari.
Trips to Botswana
Adventure trips
In our adventure trips to Botswana, we use a much wider range of lodges, still in fabulous locations and offering authentic safari experiences, but often at considerably lower cost. More strenuous activities, like walking safari, are likely to feature more prominently. These cool, sometimes edgy lodges tend to be best suited to guests who are a little more outdoorsy and forgiving.
Your trip will be fully tailor-made. We will work with you until we are all happy that we have arrived at the ideal trip solution. Sometimes that’s a quick and easy process, other times it can take several iterations. It’s a mutual learning process.
When to go to the Okavango Delta
The safari areas of Okavango Delta are very seasonal. Extremely detailed knowledge of the ecosystems and wildlife movements around every single camp is needed to properly plan a great safari. When thinking about seasonality it is important to consider the five aspects of weather, wildlife movements, visitor traffic and prices.
Apr-Jun : Flood arrival season
The Apr-Jun period marks the transition from the hot wet summer to the cool dry winter and is generally considered to be a great time to visit.
During May-Jun temperatures can drop towards freezing during the night, but this has little adverse effect on safari, the days remain gorgeous and sunny. The low temperatures ensure that there are very few flying insects. The long grasses of the preceding Green Season start to die back through April, making the tracking and viewing of wildlife easier. The inward migration of animals to the arriving floodwaters starts and wildlife densities increase in many areas through the period. By the end of May, the bush has usually transformed from green into its more characteristic yellow colour scheme, but there are still plenty of young animals around. Many camps are priced around 30% lower than peak season and most camps tend not to be too full.
Jul-Sep : Dry season
The Jul-Sep period is the main dry season in Botswana and is generally considered to be the prime season to visit.
Through this period, temperatures climb from genuinely cold at night to very comfortable, with the days remaining lovely and sunny throughout, perfect weather for safari.
By this time, huge numbers of animals have migrated in from the dry hinterlands and are clustered around the flooded areas of the Okavango Delta. Wildlife viewing should be rich and varied, although you do still have to work for your sightings, even here in Botswana.
This is also the high season in terms of prices and visitor numbers, although the latter is little problem out in the private concessions.
Oct-Dec : Hot rainy season
The Oct-Dec period is the most challenging time to be on safari in Botswana. The temperatures climb in advance of the rains, making for potentially uncomfortable nights in camps without air-conditioning (almost all of them). Once the rains properly break, temperatures should ease, but the timing of this event is unpredictable and can take place any time through this period. Even during rainy periods, the sunshine hours usually remain high. Before the rains, during the height of the dry season, wildlife is gathered around the few remaining waterholes and sightings can be truly epic. Once the rains break, the wildlife starts to disperse away from the permanent sources of water in the Okavango Delta, making wildlife viewing gradually less intense, but still relatively rich. October tends to be priced as high season, but heading into November many camps are heavily discounted, jumping back up for the brief Dec-Jan vacation season.
Jan-Mar : Green season
The period Jan-Mar represents the main green season, which is an unusual but interesting time to visit. Into January, the very high temperatures of the preceding period should be starting to ease. It is this period that threatens the most significant chance of more prolonged cloud and rain, although being the Kalahari Desert, the prevailing conditions remain relatively dry and sunny. The bush looks beautiful at this time, unusually verdant, with lots of wildflowers and baby animals. Although many of the migratory animals will have dispersed away from the main permanent water sources in Okavango Delta, those wetland areas still host a good deal of resident wildlife and sightings should remain sufficiently good to satisfy most people. Many camps are heavily discounted during this period. Late March clearly represents the best value, being the closest to the upcoming Flood Season, but needs to be booked literally years in advance. The camps tend to be wonderfully quiet, except for the last 2-3 weeks.
