Where We Go

Botswana safari destinations: 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.

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The headline

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
In this regionMoremi Game Reserve, Khwai, Maun

The Okavango Delta in full

The elephants

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
In this regionKasane, Savuti

Chobe in full

The desert

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
In this regionCentral Kalahari, Makgadikgadi Pans, Nxai Pan

The Kalahari and pans in full

The private concessions

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.