LODGES
May – October is peak season as it is dry and the bush is both more sparse and animals congregate around water sources.
November – April is the green season and while it rains, prices are lower and certain areas are great for birding.
Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta is a vast inland river delta in northern Botswana. It’s known for its sprawling grassy plains, which flood seasonally, becoming a lush animal habitat.
The Moremi Game Reserve occupies the east and central areas of the region. Here, dugout canoes are used to navigate past hippos, elephants and crocodiles. On dry land, wildlife includes lions, leopards, giraffes and rhinos.
Khwai Concession
The Khwai Concession is a 1800km area which is situated in the northeastern Okavango next to the Moremi Game Reserve. It was formed by the local Khwaivillagers and is managed by the Khwai Development Trust. The area used to be a hunting concession but is now actively managed as a conservation area.
Game viewing in the Khwai Concession is superb with excellent sightings of wild dog, lion, leopard, elephant and various other mammal species and plains game. Lodges in the Khwai Concession are mostly excellent value for money.
Moremi Game Reserve
Moremi Game Reserve is in northern Botswana, in the Okavango Delta, which becomes a lush animal habitat during seasonal floods. Dugout canoes are used to navigate past birdlife, hippos and crocodiles on waterways like the Xakanaxa Lagoon.
On land, wildlife includes lions, leopards and rhinos. Safari camps are common, with several dotted around large Chief’s Island and the forested Mopane Tongue Peninsula.
Selinda Concession
The Selinda Spillway is an ancient waterway that links the Okavango Delta with the Linyanti wetlands, flowing through the remote woodlands of the 130,000 hectare Selinda Reserve.
Along the route expect to come across the diverse species that inhabit the reserve from some of Botswana’s largest herds of buffalo and elephant to wildebeest, zebra, roan antelope and maybe even a lion, leopard or African wild dog. It is also a birder’s paradise with over 300 species possibly seen.
Chobe National Park
Chobe National Park runs from the edges of the Okavango Delta all the way up to the Chobe River in the North and offers some of the best water based game viewing in Africa.
It’s known for its large herds of elephants and Cape buffalo, which converge along the Chobe Riverfront in the dry months. Lions, antelopes and hippos inhabit the woods and lagoons around Linyanti Marsh. The floodable grasslands of the Savuti Marsh attract numerous bird species, plus migrating zebras.
Makgadikgadi
The Makgadikgadi Pan, a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world.
The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi, which once covered an area larger than Switzerland, but dried up several thousand years ago