What it is
The Okavango River never reaches the sea. It spreads across Kalahari sand into roughly 15,000 km2 of channels, lagoons, reedbeds and palm islands, and then evaporates. Camps sit on those islands. For most of them there is no road at all, only an airstrip.
Why go
It moves differently from anywhere else. A mokoro is a shallow dugout poled from the stern. You sit at water level, a metre from frogs and lilies, and hear more than you see. On the islands there is lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and red lechwe, an antelope built for running through water.
When to go
June to August, when the flood peaks and the channels are deep enough to pole. Remember the water arrives months after the rain that made it, which fell in Angola between December and March. September and October are drier underfoot, hotter, and excellent for game. From about November to January the water is at its lowest and some camps suspend mokoro and boat activities altogether, which surprises people who booked a water camp for the rainy season.
Most people stay 3-4 nights.