LINE of SIGHT

Botswana offers wildlife and warmth in equal measure, but I came for something more to draw. Belmond's 'Sketchbook Safari' reimagines luxury travel and provides a new way of seeing the world

- text HEIDI BERTISH

There’s a moment, somewhere between Maun and the middle of nowhere, when the pencil in your hand feels oddly incongruous. You're in a small aircraft, flying low enough to distinguish elephant from hippo, with a view so implausibly cinematic it could make your iPhone weep. But this is a sketching safari, and taking a photograph would be, well, a kind of betrayal.

It’s not the usual rhythm of travel in Africa, where spectacle is typically measured in headcounts — how many lions before lunch, how many Instagram reels before dinner. Belmond’s ‘Sketchbook Safari’, hosted across two of its most exquisitely placed properties in Botswana — Savute Elephant Lodge in the northern Chobe and Eagle Island Lodge in the heart of the Okavango Delta — inverts the formula.

Over five days, we were encouraged to replace instant capture with slow looking, under the guidance of Vicki Thomas.

A renowned figure in botanical circles, Vicki has spent four decades documenting the intricacies of the natural world, resulting in work held in international and local private collections. Her knowledge and way of seeing the world is as expansive as it is contagious.