Tswalu

Tswalu is South Africa's largest privately owned game reserve, a 114,000-hectare expanse of Kalahari savannah at the foot of the Korannaberg mountains. Choose between The Motse, nine thatched stone-and-clay suites known as legae, or Tarkuni, a private five-suite homestead for multi-generational groups. A further six tented homes sit apart at Loapi camp, further into the reserve. Each area has its own guiding team, vehicles and dining. The Tswalu Foundation runs long-term research into the black rhino, cheetah and reintroduced wild dog populations you are likely to see on safari.

Track a meerkat colony on foot at dawn, or ride out on horseback across dunes that turn red at sunset. Visit rock art sites left by San communities tens of thousands of years ago, and end the day at a lantern-lit dinner on the dunes, under skies dark enough that Tswalu calls them 'diamond skies.'