The Van Wyks of Kasane started with a tract of riverside property, one Toyota Land Cruiser and a big dream. Thebe River Safaris has come a long way, but as long as there are wild lands out there, they’re not stopping
Photo by The Pack / James Gifford
Back in 1994, the Van Wyk family took stock: they owned some prime property on the Chobe River in Kasane, they had a Toyota Land Cruiser, they had grown up in and around the bush and they knew it well – and they loved it.
And so, they set up Thebe River Safaris to allow other people to experience the magic and wonder of wild Botswana. “It just made sense to us,” Jan van Wyk explains to me. Jan is named after his father, also Jan van Wyk, the founder of the 100% family owned and operated business: his sons Jan and Louis and his daughter Franci are very much part of it.
Of course, if you immerse yourself in something, you’ll want to conserve it. And indeed, conservation was one of the primary drivers behind the Van Wyks’ new baby.
This year, Thebe River Safaris turns 30, and it has grown enormously in those three decades. Getting into tourism was a good business idea, I say. But Jan is quick to correct me: “It’s more of a passion than a business because we grew up in the bush.
He is pragmatic about the delicate balance between conservation, tourism and hospitality, and the community. They are interdependent, he explains. “We try to support all the [community] initiatives through education, being part of the community, being involved in certain aspects of it. We try to make people more aware of conservation, of what animals mean to us all.
That’s where the money comes from – from tourism – so we need to look after it, we need to preserve the fauna and flora.
Turns out it was a young leopard that was trying to ankle tap him. It wasn’t aggressive or anything like that, but it hung around the camp. Eventually it disappeared.
Authentic, genuine, and spectacular.
