Luxury Botswana, Linyanti and Delta

You’ll board a small bush plane bound for the aptly-named DumaTau – meaning lion’s roar – where three action-packed days along a 45km stretch of the Linyanti River await. Action that comes to you. (Think wild dog-impala takedowns over breakfast and leopards on the boardwalk at night.) When you’re not tearing off in search of predator action or watching elephants drink from your private plunge pool, you'll be sipping a sundowner around the floating fire pit on Osprey Lagoon, counting the hippos – and your blessings, too.

It’s time to swap the dusty stretches of the Linyanti for the winding, waterlily-dotted channels of the Okavango and three nights at the elegant Jao. This is the watery side of your delta experience. You’ll spend your days silently skirting hippos, elephants and crocs in a mokoro – a traditional dugout canoe – and spotting one rare bird after another. And after a nightcap in the library, under the watchful eye of a towering giraffe skeleton, you’ll drift off to sleep each night to the gentle pip-pip-pipping of bell frogs.

Very few people in the world are lucky enough to say they’ve been to Mombo. You’ll spend three nights in one of just eight spacious suites, with sweeping views over the iconic, wildlife-strewn floodplains of Chief’s Island. This is the Okavango – and five-star hospitality – at its absolute finest. And it’s where the land-based side of the delta really shines. You’ll spot everything, from the Big Five to wild dogs, cheetah and hyena – and huge herds of ungulates that keep everyone fed. It’s utterly priceless. But there’s a caveat: no safari after this will ever compare.