Chongwe River House

Upstairs bedroom, Chongwe River House, Lower Zambezi, Zambia; 260-1-286-808; safarihouses.com. The house has four bedrooms and is $650 per person with a four-guest minimum.

Is the african wilderness truly a wilderness when it comes with designer furniture, Wi-Fi, and the services of a butler, a chef, and a nanny? Chongwe River House, on the riverine border of Lower Zambezi National Park, confronts this dilemma head-on. Lest guests feel cocooned from nature, game guide turned architect Neil Rocher created undulating whitewashed ferro walls and hewn-wood furniture to echo caves and fallen branches. Waterfalls take the place of showers, and decorative prongs at either end of the house recall the horns of a rhinoceros beetle. There is a full staff, to be sure—including armed guides for bush walks to see four of the Big Five and more than 400 bird species—but thankfully no glass windows or screens to impede the views. Your upstairs bedroom looks out over a crocodile-filled river and untamed land stretching toward the Muchinga Escarpment, the natural boundary for the region's hundreds-strong elephant herds. Call of the wild indeed.