Named after the normally dry Savuti Channel, this most westerly sector of the 4,500-square-mile Chobe National Park is far more remote and very different in character to the more popular and developed Chobe Riverfront. Situated along a 4×4 track linking Chobe Riverfront to the Okavango Delta, it protects a fertile tract of savanna in the heart of the vast Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

Discover Savuti

Savuti offers some of the best all-round game viewing in Chobe National Park. It is home to plentiful lions and spotted hyena, along with giraffe, zebra, hippo, various antelope species and thousand-strong herds of buffalos. One notable absentee is rhino.

Chobe is renowned for its astonishing elephant densities, and Savuti is no exception. Numbers are to some extent seasonal, tending to peak in the dry season (May to Sep), when more than 100,000 elephants might congregate within the national park.

The lions of Savuti are unusual in that the larger prides specialize in hunting elephants, something almost unheard of elsewhere in Africa. This most often happens towards the end of the dry season (Aug-Nov), and while the victims are usually calves, young adults are also sometimes taken.

The koppies (rocky hills) that punctuate the plains of Savuti are adorned with prehistoric rock art and form a favored haunt of leopards.

Of the 450-odd bird species recorded in Chobe, around two-thirds are known to occur in Savuti. It is rewarding for grassland and savanna species associated with the Kalahari biome, for instance, Bradfield’s hornbill, racket-tailed roller, Marico flycatcher, crimson-breasted shrike and broad-tailed paradise whydah. Ostrich (the world’s largest bird) and Kori bustard (the world’s heaviest flying creature) are both commonly seen in open areas.