Walking Safari in the Tuli Block

A walking safari through Botswana’s Tuli Block places you in one of the least visited wilderness areas in southern Africa, moving through elephant migration corridors and baobab forests along the Limpopo River on foot, with a guide and tracker reading the landscape ahead of you.

The Tuli Block sits in the southeastern corner of Botswana, at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers where the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa meet.

It covers the largest privately owned game conservation area in southern Africa, around 300,000 hectares of unfenced wilderness where red sandstone ridges, open mopane plains, and baobab trees that have stood for centuries define a landscape that looks and feels unlike anywhere else in the country.

The land that makes up the Tuli Block has been shaped by water, wildlife, and human history across centuries. The Limpopo River, which runs along the southern boundary of the reserve, has served as a migration corridor for elephant herds for generations.

The largest population of elephant on private land in southern Africa moves through this terrain, following routes between the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers that have been in use long before the reserve existed in its current form.

The landscape carries other layers. Dinosaur footprints estimated at 100 million years old have been found in the Tuli region, just across the border at Vhembe. San rock engravings and stone tools record the presence of communities that lived in this landscape long before the colonial era reached it.

The reserve holds all of this alongside the wildlife, which is why time on foot here feels different to a vehicle-based safari. The ground itself is a record of everything that has passed over it.

Most of Botswana’s national parks do not permit walking safaris. The Tuli Block, as privately owned land, does. A private arrangement means the guide and tracker are accountable to two people, not a group. The route is built around what you want to find. If the tracker picks up a set of lion prints that lead away from the planned route, a private safari follows them.

The terrain amplifies what private access makes possible. Off-road movement is permitted on private land, which means the walking covers ground that a group walking safari, constrained by fixed trails, would not reach.

A tracker working for two people can take the time to explain what a set of prints means, how old they are, and what the animal was doing when it made them. That level of engagement disappears when the same tracker is managing a group.

The Tuli Block is known as the Land of Giants. Elephant herds of up to 200 individuals move through the migration corridors along the Limpopo, and encountering them on foot changes the relationship with the animal entirely.

The baobab forests that line the Limpopo’s banks are among the most significant features of the landscape. Some of the trees are estimated to be over a thousand years old, with trunks wide enough to shelter several people inside. Walking between them, on dry riverbeds where the sand holds the tracks of everything that has crossed overnight, gives the multi-day safari a sense of cumulative discovery that a single day walk cannot produce.

Lion and leopard move through the reserve year-round, with the open terrain making predator sightings more sustained than in areas of dense bush. Cheetah are present. Wild dog range across the concession. Eland, kudu, zebra, and wildebeest follow the migration routes through the reserve.

Over 350 bird species have been recorded, with the Limpopo’s banks drawing waterbirds and raptors that the open plains do not hold. The Verreaux eagle, one of the most sought-after birds in southern Africa, uses the rocky outcrops of the reserve as hunting ground.

Do Not Disturb works with a small number of guides and trackers in the Tuli Block whose depth of knowledge of the reserve is consistent with what a multi-day walking safari requires.

The reserve is less visited than Botswana’s better-known northern wilderness areas, and selecting the right guide, the right timing within the season, and the right routing across the terrain are decisions that determine the quality of the experience.

Ready to plan your walking safari through the Tuli Block and experience Botswana’s most overlooked wilderness on foot? Speak with Do Not Disturb to begin your journey.