A Cape Town Hotel Group Is Putting a Tented Lodge Inside an Active Elephant Corridor

Newmark Hotels and Reserves will open Thitaka River Lodge on Oct. 1 along the Kwando River in Namibia's Bwabwata National Park. The tented suites sit on elevated decks in a forested stretch of the Zambezi Region that doubles as an active elephant corridor.

The Cape Town-based group is offering four accommodation categories: Luxury Tents, Luxury Bush Tents, Private Villa Tents and Family Tents. Dining is built around seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. Activities include game drives, river safaris, walking safaris, bird watching and spa treatments.

Getting there

Guests can arrive by private charter to the lodge's own airstrip or drive in. The 280-kilometer road route from Kasane runs through Chobe National Park and across the Botswana-Namibia border, roughly three hours with wildlife sightings along the way. A shorter transfer of about an hour is available from Katima Mulilo.

The location matters commercially. The Zambezi Region sits within reach of Victoria Falls and Livingstone, which makes it sellable as an extension to a Falls trip rather than as a standalone long-haul itinerary. Most of Namibia's established luxury lodges are far to the west and south, among them Wilderness Kulala Desert Lodge at Sossusvlei and Shipwreck Lodge on the Skeleton Coast, both a long way from the Falls circuit.

Travelers combining the two sides can pair the new lodge with Matetsi Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean bank of the Zambezi.