582,000 square kilometres. All of it ours.
Botswana is not one destination but a dozen distinct ones, and choosing between them is the first real decision of your journey. Here is how we think about them.
The Okavango Delta
The largest inland delta on earth and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Every year the Okavango River floods out of the Angolan highlands and dies in the Kalahari sand rather than reaching the sea — and in doing so creates 15,000 square kilometres of channels, lagoons and palm islands in the middle of a desert.
It is the only place in Africa where a safari is conducted by dugout canoe, and it holds the highest concentration of top-tier camps on the continent.
- Best monthsThe flood peaks June to September — counter-intuitively, months after the rains
- How you see itMokoro, motorboat, game drive and walking, depending on water levels
- Who it suitsEveryone. This is the reason people come to Botswana
Chobe National Park
The largest elephant population on earth — at times more than 120,000 animals — concentrated on a river frontage that in the dry season becomes the only reliable water for a very long way.
The riverfront is best seen from a boat, at eye level with elephant crossing to the islands. It is also the easiest part of Botswana to reach, an hour from Victoria Falls.
- Best monthsJune to October for the concentrations; year-round for the river
- How you see itBoat cruises and game drives, from Kasane
- Who it suitsFirst-timers, short breaks, photographers, Victoria Falls add-ons
The Kalahari & the Salt Pans
The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is the second-largest protected area in the world, and holds black-maned lion, cheetah and the fossil river bed of Deception Valley. Beside it lie the Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans — salt flats the size of Switzerland, empty and blinding in the dry, green grassland full of zebra after the rains.
This is where Botswana stops looking like a safari brochure and starts looking like the surface of somewhere else.
- Best monthsDecember to April for game and the migration; year-round for the pans
- How you see itGame drives, quad-biking, sleep-outs, meerkats and San tracking
- Who it suitsSecond-time visitors, photographers, anyone who wants space
Linyanti, Selinda & Savuti
Vast private concessions in the north with negligible vehicle traffic, where night drives and walking safaris are permitted because national park rules do not apply. Savuti’s lion prides are among the most studied and most formidable in Africa, and the Selinda Spillway is one of the best wild dog areas on the continent.
- Best monthsMay to October, when game concentrates on the waterways
- How you see itGame drives, night drives, walking safaris, boats in season
- Who it suitsExperienced safari travellers and serious photographers
Six more places worth your days.
Moremi Game Reserve
The Delta’s protected heart, and the reserve most people rate highest in the country. Exceptional predator density, and the only part of the Delta reachable by road.
Khwai Community Area
Community-owned, wildlife-rich and one of the best-value wilderness areas in Botswana. Night drives and walking are permitted, and the money stays in the village.
Tuli Block
Botswana’s eastern secret — red rock, big elephant, and a landscape that looks like nowhere else in the country. Reached from Johannesburg rather than Maun.
Tsodilo Hills
A UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 4,500 rock paintings, sacred to the San for millennia. Botswana’s oldest and least visited cultural site.
Maun
The gateway to the Okavango and our head office. A working safari town rather than a resort, and the busiest light-aircraft hub in southern Africa.
Kasane
The Chobe gateway, at the point where four countries meet. An hour from Victoria Falls, and the easiest entry into northern Botswana.
The country, in pictures.
Not sure which parts of Botswana suit you?
That is the most common question we answer, and the one most worth getting right. Tell us when you can travel and what you want out of it.