Tswalu Private Luxury Game Reserve in the Kalahari

The wider Kalahari is a vast, arid region of sandy, porous land which extends across much of Southern Africa. Stretching from South Africa’s Orange River northwards across eastern Namibia, Botswana and western Zimbabwe, the Kalahari also embraces parts of Angola, Zambia and the Congo in a total area of more than 2.5 million square kilometres, about 10 times the size of Great Britain.

The name Kalahari derives from the Tswana word “Kgala” which means “great thirst”. But the southern Kalahari, where Tswalu is located, is really a “green desert” as the Korannaberg mountains attract precious rainfall in the summer months. Over 400 plant species have been identified here at Tswalu together with 230 bird species, 90 mammal species and 38 species of reptile. Every living thing has adapted ingeniously to this unique environment.

The Kalahari has been the ancestral home of the San people, or Bushmen, for thousands of years. As hunter-gatherers, the Bushmen survived by tracking and hunting wild game with bows and arrow, gathering berries or desert melons and storing scarce water in the blown-out shells of ostrich eggs. The San culture and beliefs are rich and rooted in this land. Tswalu offers unrivalled privacy in a vast, pristine wilderness and have a maximum of six vehicles in over 100,000 hectares. As Nicky Oppenheimer says, “If you see another Land Rover, complain!”

The expert Field Guides have been specially trained in Kalahari wildlife and each contributes personally to the constant programme of research and conservation on the reserve. Game drives will be completely tailored to your own interests. As well as discovering many rare and endangered species for the first time, every guest leaves with a deep appreciation of the beauty of this entire eco-system. As one guest told us recently,

“Last week I saw the Big 5 in the Kruger. Here I saw Africa.”

Tswalu want people to get even closer to the land. To touch the unique vegetation (and learn about some plants’ extraordinary properties). To inspect nests and burrows. To examine the smallest insect. A morning can begin by walking to a meerkat colony and watching these engaging mammals warm themselves in the sunshine before they scamper off to forage. Night walks are now also possible, offering the chance of exceptional sightings such as aardvark, aardwolf, porcupine or brown hyena at even closer range.