Swoop over the unfenced Selinda Reserve in a private plane and it would be tempting to think that this expanse of grassy wilderness is untouched by humans. Bull elephants munch water lilies in the shallows of the Linyanti, lions lurk in islands of thicket, and when the Selinda Spillway connects with the Okavango Delta during heavier rainy seasons, its banks swell with game.

Predators start their day at dawn, and so do you, taking to the plains in a spacious safari vehicle to see what this extraordinary habitat has in store. Only four camps in total have access to the reserve, meaning the odds are good your drives will pass without seeing any other human visitors. Return to camp for lunch and rest, heading back out to the bush later in the afternoon, when nocturnal creatures are beginning to stir.

The only constant on a safari is unpredictability — today’s game drives reveal another fascinating facet of life in the Selinda Reserve. With four of the Big Five present, along with wild dogs and the full complement of plains game, drama is all but guaranteed.

Follow by helicopter along the Selinda Spillway to the Okavango Delta, with its network of lagoons, channels, palm islands and floodplains to your next camp, Chief’s Camp, an A&K Sanctuary. This afternoon, make your first game drive into Moremi Game Reserve or enjoy the vistas from your own private viewing deck.

Like Selinda, very few camps occupy Moremi Game Reserve, which makes for a highly prized (and largely crowd-free) game viewing experience in a habitat often called the “Predator Capital of Africa.” Morning and afternoon game drives offer a panoply of hunters and plains dwellers, along with flocks of both resident and migratory birds.

Your luxury safari lodge occupies a beautiful island amid the delta’s watery landscape, its natural height making it the ideal retreat as waters rise with the season. Set out over land and, conditions permitting, by dugout canoe, taking in the vast spectacle of wildlife all around you.

Makgadikgadi Pans is the salty ghost of a vast network of lakes that once covered much of Botswana. For half the year you can crunch across it on foot with a Zu/’hoasi guide, marveling at the echoing emptiness and secretive desert creatures that call it home, such as aardwolves and bat-eared foxes. Between November and April, it is transformed into an algae-rich soup where thousands of flamingos descend to feed.

Leave the safari vehicles behind for a thrilling ATV adventure through this seemingly deserted wonderland that reveals Stone Age archaeological sites and communities of Zu/’hoasi Bushmen who have survived against all the odds in this arid landscape for thousands of years.

Continue your extraordinary safari desert experience, focusing on species unique to the area such as aardvark, gemsbuck and springbuck. It is the only place where you are virtually guaranteed to see the rare and elusive brown hyena and interact with a gang of habituated but wild meerkats.