Botswana Travel Guide

What travelling Botswana is actually like

Botswana is a large, landlocked country in southern Africa, mostly covered by the Kalahari. Around 40% of the country is protected as national parks, game reserves and wildlife management areas, and it has one of the largest elephant populations in the world.

The Okavango Delta, in the north-west, is the highlight. Every year, floodwater from the Angolan highlands spreads into the Kalahari, creating a maze of channels, lagoons and islands full of wildlife. The classic way to explore it is by mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe poled by a local guide. Maun is the gateway town.

In the north-east, Chobe National Park, near Kasane, is famous for its elephants, especially along the Chobe river in the dry season, where boat cruises bring you close to herds drinking and swimming. Kasane is just across the border from Zambia and an hour from Victoria Falls, so many travellers visit on a day trip.

Between the two, the Makgadikgadi and Nxai salt pans are among the largest in the world, with meerkats, zebra migrations and huge night skies. Further south, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is one of Africa's biggest and wildest reserves.

Botswana follows a "high-value, low-volume" tourism model, so many lodges are expensive. But the country is safe, stable and well run, with good tarred roads between towns, and budget travellers can get by with campsites, buses and day trips from Maun and Kasane.

Gaborone, the capital, is a calm, modern city in the south-east, near the South African border, and a transport hub rather than a destination.