Walking with elephants in Botswana

Ever fancied an elephant as your tour guide on safari? Well, now you can thanks to luxury travel provider Sanctuary Retreats’ unique elephant program, which it operates in partnership with the Living with Elephants Foundation in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. With its lush floodplains and dry Kalahari sands, northern Botswana is home to the world’s largest remaining population of African elephant herds, where they live a largely protected and secure existence. Guests staying at Sanctuary Stanley’s Camp in the heart of Botswana’s Okavango Delta can take advantage of a unique opportunity to explore and experience the African bush from an elephant’s perspective. Here they can spend half a day walking with Jabu and Morula, a pair of semi-habituated orphaned elephants, observing and interacting with them in their natural environment. This extraordinary experience allows guests to join a foraging trek, steered by the elephants, and observe at close quarters how they search peacefully for food, stripping leaves from branches with their trunks, shaking trees for palm nuts and spraying themselves in the Delta’s lagoons. Jabu and Morula were adopted by Living with Elephants’ husband and wife team, Doug and Sandi Groves, when culling operations in South Africa and Zimbabwe left them as orphans. The couple have strived to give them a life that is as close to elephants’ natural lives as possible, albeit one that is a little cushioned from the enormous pressures, insecurities and challenges with which wild elephants are typically confronted. Heart of the Elephant Itinerary If you can feel the pull of the pachyderm, then Sanctuary Retreats’ 5-night Heart of the Elephant itinerary is the one for you.