Botswana's Highlights

A land-locked country straddling the Tropic of Capricorn, Botswana offers one of the last unspoilt wildernesses left in Africa. Within its huge game reserves and national parks, the largest herds in southern Africa roam free and wild, together with some of the continent’s most spectacular and varied birdlife. Remarkably for an African country, Botswana has a tiny population: just over two and a half million inhabitants occupy this nation that is the size of France and Germany combined! It is a dry land, the majority of the country comprising the waterless Kalahari, yet the world’s largest inland delta – the Okavango – transforms 15,000 square kilometres of this desert into a paradise of palms, papyrus and crystal clear waterways. The water that feeds the Delta is Botswana’s lifeblood. Falling as rain on the Angolan highlands a thousand kilometres away, it takes up to six months to reach the Delta: a pulse of flood water that brings life-generating moisture during Botswana’s long, dry winter season.

We begin our holiday by flying to Livingstone in Zambia. Two nights spent here will allow us to explore the lush forests around the Victoria Falls. One of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Falls are twice as high as Niagara, and one-and-a-half times as wide. In the gorges beneath live Red-winged Starlings and Rock Pratincoles, whilst in the gardens of our riverside lodge we will look for Trumpeter Hornbill, Black-collared Barbet and a variety of colourful sunbirds and weavers. Our stay in Zambia will also include a sunset cruise on the magnificent Zambezi River.

We enter Botswana via the small Zambian border town of Kazingula and transfer to Kasane on the edge of Chobe National Park. Before heading deep into the park for our first three nights under canvas, we will take a cruise on the Chobe River. This is Elephant country, and it is possible to see 100 or more of these giants in a single morning lined up along the river’s edge, the only permanent water source in northern Chobe and a magnet for the local wildlife during the dry season. Birds, too, are abundant and include Martial Eagle, African Skimmer and the beautiful Southern Carmine Bee-eater.

For our next three nights we will be based in a comfortable mobile tented camp set up along the edge of the Savuti Channel, deep within Chobe National Park. The dry Savuti Channel and the nearby Savuti Marsh offer some of the very best wildlife-viewing anywhere in Africa. Numerous Impala, Burchell’s Zebra, African Buffalo and other mammals dot the open savannah, falling prey on a daily basis to prides of Lions, clans of Spotted Hyenas and solitary Cheetahs. Savuti is also the stage for one of the most epic battles on the continent, for it is here that (under the cover of darkness) Lions have learnt to hunt, and bring down, Elephants!

Moving west, we reach the outer fringes of the magnificent Okavango Delta where we spend three nights under canvas in the private Khwai Concession close to the permanent waters of the Khwai River. Although the mammals, birds and other wildlife wander freely between here and the neighbouring Moremi Game Reserve, the advantage of spending a few nights in Khwai is that we can enjoy night-drives in search of Leopards, African Civets, bushbabies and genets and such birds as Giant Eagle Owl and Pennant-winged Nightjar.

We conclude our holiday with three nights in the Moremi Game Reserve. This is one of the most beautiful and unspoiled reserves in Africa, its western reaches consumed by the clear waters of the Okavango Delta, its eastern sector clothed in Mopane woodland and grassland. Our friendly local staff will move our camp to the Xakanaxa region of the park, while we watch for the herds of African Buffalo, stately parties of Southern Giraffe and huge bull Elephants that roam here, as well as such bird species as Black Coucal, Wattled Crane and Slaty Egret. With such a large variety of prey on the hoof, it is not surprising that Moremi offers some of the best predator-viewing on the continent and our best chance of finding a pack of African Wild Dogs!

Since our tour ends in the town of Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta, you might like to extend your holiday by flying into the very heart of this natural wonder. Here you can stay in one of the small and remote lodges surrounded by the permanent waters of the Delta and explore the maze of waterways and flooded plains in traditional ‘mokoro’ canoes in search of Sitatunga and the rare Pel’s Fishing Owl.