Let Us Customize the Perfect Luxury Botswana Safari for You
Below are some of our recommended places to visit in Botswana. Contact us today or call 303-778-1089 to learn more about how we are able to customize the perfect luxury Botswana safari just for you!
Okavango Delta/Moremi Game Reserve
The Okavango Delta is a pristine natural wonderland. Made of up of an incredible maze of waterways, channels, lagoons and islands, the area is home to a huge number of mammals and birds. The Delta is fed by the Okavango River and seasonally ‘floods’ to create the huge, fan-shaped waterway. Activities can change seasonally with water levels, and range from motorboat safaris to game walks, drives and horseback safaris. No trip to the Delta is complete without a mokoro trip where you silently glide on the water through the reeds in a dugout canoe. A helicopter flight is a fantastic way to get a sense of the vast wilderness.
The Moremi Game Reserve is the heart of the Delta, a protected area that is known as one of the richest and most diverse ecosystems on the African continent. More than 400 species of birds are found here (including migratory and endangered species), as well as the Big 5, and game viewing is nothing short of spectacular.
Chobe National Park/Savute
Chobe National Park hosts a wide variety of habitats and wildlife. More than 7,000 square miles of floodplains, swamps and woodland can be explored with the beautiful Chobe River as a frequent backdrop. The riverfront is the most frequently visited part of the park and for good reason. Huge herds of elephants and Cape buffalo mass on the river’s edge to drink in the dry season, making for incredible game viewing. River cruises are another excellent way to see the area’s abundant wildlife. Safari-goers can get up close and personal with hippos, crocodiles, water birds, while also enjoying terrestrial species from a different vantage point.
Further into Chobe, the Savute region is remote and wild. Best known for its predators, travelers can seek out lion, leopard, cheetah and hyena on their game drives in addition to most of Chobe’s other species. The 60-mile-long Savute Channel is found here. This enigmatic water feature seems immune to pattern and in the last 40+ years has been both bone dry for decades as well as a lush and blooming paradise. It’s a year-round destination with fascinating wildlife sightings.
Linyanti/Selinda/Kwando
These three concessions in Botswana’s northern region offer superlative wildlife viewing. Set between Chobe National Park and the Okavango, the concessions are home to woodlands, floodplains, swamps, rivers, lagoons and beautiful channels. The Linyanti and Kwando rivers are permanent and are important year-round water sources for wildlife. Plains game are abundant, as are predators such as lion and hyena. Elephants and Cape buffalo can be spotted year-round, with very large gatherings found during certain seasons of the year. Birdlife is abundant – from boubous, owls and sunbirds to raptors such as Bateleur eagles and bat hawks.
Activities include day and night game drives, boating safaris (seasonal), bush walks, wildlife viewing from hides and fishing. Ask your Journey Specialist about participating in special game count activities (seasonal and date dependent).
Makgadikgadi & Nxai Pans National Park
This series of vast salt pans are an incredible sight and are among the largest in the world. Once a giant prehistoric lake, this seemingly inhospitable landscape hosts a wide variety of wildlife including black-maned lions, brown hyena, meerkats and aardwolf. Interspersed among the salt pans are sand dunes, rocky islands and peninsulas and desert terrain.
The area is home to Africa’s second-largest wildebeest and zebra migration (generally December – March). During the dry season, crystal clear skies twinkle with millions of stars and the expanse of the pans is so vast, you can see the curvature of the earth. When the rains come, wildlife moves in to take advantage of lush vegetation and abundant water.
Some wildlife viewing is seasonal and can be dependent on the rains, though there is year-round charm in the Makgadikgadi/Nxai Pans National Park. A visit with a habituated meerkat group is educational, charming and unforgettable, while night drives reveal fascinating nocturnal species. Walking with the bushmen will open your eyes to the abundance around you, while quad biking (ATV) across the pans (seasonal) is a singular thrill. Horseback safaris are also an option for equine lovers.
The Central Kalahari Game Reserve
This sandy scrub semi-desert represents Africa at its most fascinating. One of the world’s largest game reserves, the Central Kalahari is an untouched wilderness that boasts few roads, facilities or infrastructure of any type, which is perfect if you’re seeking to get away from it all. We offer getaways at remote camps offering fantastic seasonal game viewing, star gazing, nature walks, cultural interactions with the bushmen and more.
Tuli Block/Mashatu
This incredible game viewing area is just north of the Limpopo River across from South Africa. Known as the “land of giants” because it is home to giants of African wildlife including elephant, lion, ostrich, giraffe, eland and more, it offers fantastic game viewing, along with many special activities not found elsewhere in Botswana such as hiking, horse riding and mountain bike safaris. Its diverse landscapes include woodlands, marshlands, sandstone cliffs and stunning kopjes – all making for dramatic wildlife viewing backdrops.
When to Visit
While there is no one ‘best time’ of year to visit Botswana, it helps to understand the country’s different seasons. Keep in mind that there are many areas in Botswana that have permanent water sources that attract wildlife, unaffected by the seasons.
Botswana’s dry season generally falls in the months between May and October. The months of June through August tend to have the coolest temperatures – in the Kalahari, they can even drop below freezing at night – though in the Okavango, the water and vegetation keep temperature swings to a more moderate level. These months are good for wildlife viewing with little rain and clear skies. In the Kalahari and the Makgadikgadi Pans area, clear skies make stargazing conditions excellent, and this is the time of year for excursions on the Pans.
Botswana’s wet season is from December to March. Weather can be moody, though rains are usually short. The vegetation is at its most lush and animals generally have no shortages of food and water sources. Photography can be especially wonderful during the wet season with dramatic skies and rain-washed landscapes, and this is the best time to see the migration in the Makgadikgadi Pans area as the desert blooms into life.
