All aboard the Okavango Spirit, a houseboat that’s effectively a hotel on the water that glides from location to location in the panhandle region of the Delta, giving you a chance to enjoy peace, quiet, and a fair few wildlife sightings.
The idea of ever-changing scenery and seeing different views from your cabin every morning has great appeal. During your time aboard, you’ll cruise waterways by day, and moor in serene locations at night.
In between, you can climb aboard smaller boats attached to the main boat for your adventures. These could be a game drive with spotting the Big 5 top of the agenda, or a guided bush walk giving you the chance to see smaller wildlife and plant species. How about a visit to a local village to meet the people and sample their way of life? Or the chance to explore the World Heritage site at Tsodilo Hills where there’s ancient African rock art?
Birdwatchers will be in their element aboard the Spirit, as previous guests report seeing up to 200 different species in a single day. Bringing your binoculars is therefore essential to enjoy close-ups of feathered friends such as bee-eater, kingfisher, heron, eagle, and if you’re lucky, Pel’s fishing owl.
You can stay on the water for some activities, swapping the houseboat for canoe-like mokoros and paddling the waters searching for the ultimate photo opportunity. Catch and release fishing is also an option, with tender boats taking you to points along the waterways that are likely to be the most fruitful.
The Spirit has 8 cabins with either twin beds or a double. All have an ensuite bathroom as well as sliding doors leading out to a private deck. It’s here you’ll likely spend a lot of time, watching elephant or buffalo drinking from the water’s edge, hippo heads with their trademark ears bobbing up and down in the wet stuff, and perhaps a stock-still crocodile lurking in the reeds preparing to pounce on its prey.
Although the Okavango Spirit only accommodates a maximum of 14 guests at any one time, the boat is big enough to give you space for a quiet read (the lounge), somewhere to view wildlife (the sundeck) and of course, areas you can eat and drink (the top deck restaurant and bar). Food is cooked by an expert chef, and dinner on the last night of your stay will be served under the stars next to a cosy camp fire.
Guests aboard Okavango Spirit Houseboat spend their days exploring the waterways of the Okavango at a wonderfully gentle pace. Excursions by tender boat offer the chance to spot hippos, crocodiles and an impressive variety of birdlife, while guided fishing trips are particularly popular during the season. There is also plenty of time simply to sit back on deck with a drink in hand and watch the Delta drift by - which, rather wonderfully, counts as an activity here too.
Okavango Spirit Houseboat offers a relatively low-impact way to explore the Okavango Delta, with a focus on minimising footprint on land and supporting broader conservation initiatives through its operator, Natural Selection.
"A dream come true"
We had the most amazing family holiday, everything worked so perfectly, the arrangements and accommodation was spectacular!
"Unforgettable trip to Namibia – Thank you Namibia Tours & Safaris!"
We are a group of four from Romania and spent 3 unforgettable weeks in Namibia. We can't recommend them enough, and for any future travels in Namibia or other parts of Africa, we will definitely use their services again.
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From the time we put the key in the ignition till we boarded the plane in Windhoek nothing went wrong.
"Unforgettable bird photography trip in Namibia"
It was a fantastic experience, everything was very well organised, went smooth and according to expectations. It was our first self drive in Africa and it was a great, unforgettable time.
