Botswana - Well known as one of the great safari destinations in Africa, Botswana offers some of the most beautiful, luxurious, and active safari experiences in Africa.

A Botswanan safari can never be long enough, and never experienced often enough.   Although one of the flattest countries you will ever visit, Botswana is blessed with an incredible variety of  landscapes and eco-systems.  

It is the very flatness of Botswana which has created some of the world's most special wilderness areas, and exploring the Kalahari, Okavango Delta and Makgadikgadi Salt Pans rewards you with memories for a lifetime.

Easily accessible from Johannesburg, and simply combined with Victoria Falls, Botswana needs to be on your safari list if you are planning a visit to Southern Africa.

As soon as you land in Maun or Kasane, you will know that you have arrived in a country which operates like nothing you have experienced before.

With the warthogs running through the streets of Kasane, and the hippos grunting in the Chobe River, your welcome to Botswana is one which tells you straight away you are in Africa's wilds.
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Photo: Dana Allen

Okavango Delta

It is very difficult to describe in words the experience of waking up to an Okavango Delta sunrise. 

The Okavango is one of the world's largest inland delta's, and is truly an oasis in the Kalahari Desert.  With the Kavango River flowing from Angola into the sands of the Kalahari and creating another world of swamps and animals, everyday brings some new excitement when exploring the waterways or sandy islands.

Enjoy wildlife sightings while on foot, in mokoro's, on boats, or on exciting day and night time game drives, or just from the deck of your luxury tent!

Chobe National Park

Being the easiest National Park in Botswana to access, with the entrance gate 10 minutes from Kasane town centre, Chobe National Park is the most visited area of  Botswana.

With the Chobe River being the main attraction for tourists, and the life supply to a few thousand elephants and a huge range of other wildlife, game drives and boat cruises here will always provide you with some fantastic sightings.

Chobe is the kingdom of the elephants, and you will fall absolutely in love with these gentle giants.

Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

Thousands of years ago, Lake Makgadikgadi, Africa's then largest lake, covered 80 000 square kilometers of Southern Africa, before drying up and leaving behind the Okavango Delta and the seemingly endless Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.

Covering about 12 000 square kilometres, and offering wide open spaces, eternal skies, phenomenal sunsets and a journey into the midst of nowhere, these pans are unfortunately often overlooked by most travellers.

However, there are some wonderful camps from which the Makgadikgadi Pans can be explored, and we highly recommend including them in a Botswana safari itinerary.

Central Kalahari National Park

One of the world's largest national parks at over 50 000 square kilometres, but also strangely one of the least touristed, the Central Kalahari National Park is an area where you can truly get away from it all, and be surrounded by nature at its most untouched and wild.

It is only in recent years that permanent camps have been built in the Central Kalahari, so it is easy to be one of only a handful of people present in an area the size of some countries.

Being a great wet season destination, the Central Kalahari allows some wonderful sightings when other areas may be relatively quiet. 
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Photo: Great Plains Conservation

Savuti

Although technically part of the Chobe National Park, Savuti has become a famous destination in its own right.

With the Savuti Channel filling up with water again after a 30 year dry spell the landscape of this barren area has changed somewhat over the past few years, but the wild experience remains the same.

Well known for its lion prides and hyena packs, Savute is a particularly good wet season destination when the Savute marsh springs into life. 

Kwando, Linyanti and Selinda

In the far north of Botswana, along the border of the Caprivi Strip, Namibia, lie the reserves of Kwando, Linyanti and Selinda.

These are private concession areas which offer luxury safari experiences well away from the main tourist route, and with some excellent sightings of predators and animal interaction.

The camps in these concessions are exclusive and luxurious, and definitely worth a stay if you are looking for an extra special holiday experience.