Botswana decided decades ago to sell a small number of beds at high prices rather than many beds cheaply. That decision shapes the whole trip. Camps are small, most are reached by light aircraft from Maun or Kasane, and you will often be the only vehicle at a sighting. It costs what it costs, and there is no budget version.
The two headline areas are not alike. The Okavango Delta is water: mokoro channels, flooded plains, island camps. The Chobe riverfront is elephants and boats. Most trips do three nights of each and add something dry, either the Kalahari or the salt pans.
The flood is the thing visitors get wrong, and it is worth understanding before you pick dates. The Delta is at its fullest in the middle of the dry season.
When to go
| Months | What it is like |
|---|---|
| May-Aug | Dry season, and the Delta's flood peak. No rain. Mornings on a boat are cold enough for a jacket and a hat, afternoons are pleasant. Game concentrates on permanent water. Busiest and most expensive stretch of the year. |
| Sep-Oct | The flood recedes and the heat climbs. October regularly passes 38C. Game viewing is the most concentrated of the year because there is nowhere else to drink. Bring a hat and accept the afternoons. |
| Nov-Dec | First rains. The bush greens, impala drop their young, migrant birds arrive, and zebra move onto Nxai Pan. Storms are short and usually late afternoon. Rates fall. |
| Jan-Mar | Wet season. Some camps close, Moremi's tracks turn to black-cotton mud, and the Central Kalahari is at its best precisely now. Cheapest months, most insects, hardest driving. |
Before you go
- The Okavango flood runs backwards from what you would expect. The rain falls in the Angolan highlands between December and March, then takes four to five months to travel down the river system and spread across the Delta. So the Delta is fullest in June, July and August, in the middle of Botswana's dry season, when it has not rained locally for months. That is why mokoro trips are a winter activity, and why the rainy season and the flood season here are roughly six months apart.
- Many nationalities, including the UK, EU, US, Australia and most of Southern Africa, enter visa-free for up to 90 days. Botswana has been rolling out an online travel authorisation for visa-exempt visitors, so confirm whether yours needs one before you fly.
- Northern Botswana, meaning the Delta, Moremi, Chobe and the Linyanti, is a malaria area with risk highest from November to June. Take prophylaxis and use repellent at dusk. The Kalahari and the south are much lower risk. Get advice from a travel clinic rather than from a camp.
- Pula is the currency. Cards work in Maun, Kasane and Gaborone. Camps are usually paid in advance and tips are cash, in pula or US dollars.
- Most camps are reached by light aircraft. Those planes carry very little: the limit is usually 20 kg in a soft bag with no frame, including hand luggage and camera gear. Pack to that number or you will repack it on the apron.
- Self-driving Botswana is possible and it is not a beginner's trip. Moremi and Chobe's interior need a proper 4×4, recovery gear, two spares, long-range fuel and the ability to fix things a long way from help. Two vehicles in convoy is the usual advice. If this is your first African safari, fly and be driven.
Everything on this page is ordinary content. Rewrite it in your own voice, add the places you actually run trips to, and delete the rest.
