Botswana.
A country that decided expensive and empty beats cheap and crowded, and has held that line for forty years.
Ten nights, on a second safari rather than a first. The most exclusive game viewing in Africa and the most expensive — a deliberate forty-year policy of high price and low volume.
- Give it
- 10 nights
- Best months
- Jun–Oct
- From
- $1,500 pp/night
- Come for
- Water, exclusivity, elephant
The most deliberate tourism policy in Africa
Botswana chose, in the 1980s, to price its safaris high and cap its beds low — a policy it has never softened. The result is the most exclusive game viewing on the continent: concessions of hundreds of thousands of acres with a single twelve-bed camp on them, and mornings where you genuinely do not see another vehicle.
The Okavango is the reason. An inland delta the size of a small country, fed by Angolan rain that arrives six months late, flooding at the height of the dry season when everything around it is parched. That inversion concentrates game extraordinarily, and it means water travel — mokoro, motorboat, and walking on islands — alongside conventional driving.
Beyond the delta, Linyanti and Chobe hold the largest elephant population on earth, around 130,000, and the Central Kalahari offers black-maned lion and the Deception Valley in the green season. Botswana is stable, well-run and genuinely committed to conservation, and it is the country we recommend most often for a second safari.
~130,000
Elephant — the world’s largest population
15,000
km² of Okavango delta at flood
~38%
Of the country under conservation
1 camp
Per 200,000-acre concession, typically
- Genuine exclusivity — very few vehicles
- Water safaris: mokoro, boat, island walking
- Elephant in extraordinary numbers
- Second and third safaris
Less good for
- Tight budgets — this is the dearest country we sell
- First-timers wanting the classic migration image
- Children under eight at most camps
Five regions, and what each is for
The Okavango delta
Jun–Sep · water at its height
Permanent and seasonal channels, mokoro at dawn, island walking, and leopard on the palm islands. The heart of it.
Moremi
Year-round · the game reserve
The delta’s eastern third, and the only part under formal reserve status. Higher densities, more vehicles, lower prices.
Linyanti and Selinda
Jun–Oct · elephant and dog
Private concessions between the delta and Chobe, with the best wild dog viewing in Africa and enormous dry-season elephant.
Chobe riverfront
May–Oct · boats and numbers
Elephant in hundreds coming to the river at dusk, best seen from a boat. Busier than anywhere else in Botswana.
Central Kalahari
Dec–Apr · the green season
Black-maned lion, cheetah on the pans, and Deception Valley after rain. The opposite of the delta, and half the price.
Makgadikgadi
Apr–Oct · salt pans
Meerkats, quad bikes on the salt, and sleeping out on a pan under more stars than seems reasonable.
Month by month
| Months | Weather | Water & game | Crowds | Our view |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan – Mar | Hot, wet; the green season | Kalahari at its best; delta quiet | Low | Excellent value, and dramatic skies |
| Apr – May | Drying; flood arriving | Good; shoulder pricing | Low | Our value recommendation |
| Jun – Aug | Cool, dry; flood at its peak | Peak: water high, game concentrating | Very high | Book eleven months ahead |
| Sep – Oct | Hot, very dry | Outstanding; game at the last water | Very high | The best game viewing of the year |
| Nov | Hot, first rains | Good; camps quiet | Low | Underrated |
| Dec | Hot, wet | Kalahari calving; delta green | Moderate | Green-season pricing except at New Year |
Flights and entry
Maun is the delta gateway, reached from Johannesburg, Cape Town or Windhoek; Kasane serves Chobe. Everything internal is by light aircraft — camps are on private airstrips and there are no roads worth using. Most journeys route through Johannesburg, which adds a night at the start or end.
What it runs to
The most expensive country we sell. High-season delta camps run USD 1,500–3,500 per person per night all-inclusive, and light-aircraft transfers add USD 250–450 per leg. Green season, April–May and November drop that by 30 to 50 per cent, which is why we push those months hard for guests who can travel then.
Before you go
Fifteen kilogram soft-bag limit, strictly enforced on light aircraft. Most camps set a minimum age of eight, several of twelve, and family camps must be chosen deliberately. Malaria prophylaxis in the north; the Kalahari is low-risk. Winter nights in June and July are genuinely cold on a dawn boat.
Twelve beds on two hundred thousand acres
Botswana’s camps are small by law and by economics: eight to sixteen beds, on a private concession leased from a community trust or the state, with exclusive traversing rights. That is what the price buys, and it is a genuinely different product from a lodge in a national park.
Water camps offer mokoro and boating and less driving; land camps offer game drives and night drives; the best itineraries combine two or three, because the delta changes character every fifty kilometres. Three nights each in a water camp and a land camp is the minimum sensible shape.
Because inventory is tiny and demand is not, the good camps sell out eleven months ahead for July to October. We hold space speculatively for our own guests in that window, which is occasionally the only way to get it.
Ten nights, as we would build it
Into Maun
Arrived via Johannesburg and met airside. A short charter into the delta the same afternoon, or a night in Maun if the timings are unkind.
A water camp
Mokoro at dawn through the channels — poled, silent, at reed height. Island walking in the afternoon with an armed guide.
The delta
Boating at first light for sitatunga and reed frogs, then a long afternoon drive on the larger islands. Leopard are the specialty here.
The delta
A day held open, and in the delta that usually means water: a picnic on an island, and a great deal of doing very little.
To a land camp
A fifteen-minute hop to a different concession. Drier country, higher densities, and night drives — which the water camps cannot offer.
Linyanti
Wild dog if the pack is denning, and elephant coming down to the marsh in the late afternoon in numbers that are hard to describe.
Linyanti
A full day: dawn drive, hide at the waterhole through the heat, and a night drive after dinner.
To the Kalahari
South to Deception Valley — a completely different Botswana, empty and pale, with black-maned lion and cheetah on the pans.
The Kalahari
A morning with a San tracker, an afternoon of nothing, and the clearest night sky on the journey.
Makgadikgadi
On to the salt pans: meerkats at dawn, quad bikes on the crust, and a bedroll on the pan itself if the season allows.
Homeward
A charter to Maun and the connection to Johannesburg.
Botswana against the rest
Against Kenya and Tanzania: Botswana costs two to three times as much and delivers a fraction of the vehicles. It has no migration and less predictable big-cat viewing, but the delta is unlike anywhere else and the exclusivity is real rather than marketed.
Against Zambia: the closest comparison, and Zambia is roughly half the price with better walking and equally good guiding. Botswana has the water, the elephant numbers and smoother logistics. Zambia is the value answer; Botswana is the one guests save for.
Against Namibia: entirely different. Namibia is a self-drive desert country of landscape; Botswana is a fly-in water country of wildlife. The two combine well and are frequently sold as one three-week journey.
Every country we work in
On Botswana
Why is Botswana so expensive?
Deliberate policy since the 1980s: high value, low volume. Camps are capped at eight to sixteen beds on concessions of hundreds of thousands of acres, everything arrives by light aircraft, and the lease fees fund community trusts. You are buying emptiness, and it is genuinely delivered.
When does the delta flood?
Counter-intuitively, at the height of the dry season. Angolan rain takes about six months to reach the delta, so the water peaks between June and August when everything around it is parched — which is why the game concentration is so extraordinary.
Is it good for a first safari?
It can be, but we usually advise Kenya or Tanzania first: more animals, more variety, lower cost, and the classic images most first-timers have in mind. Botswana rewards a traveller who already knows what they are looking at.
Can we take children?
At some camps, from eight, and a handful welcome younger with a private vehicle and guide. Many set twelve as a minimum. Family travel here needs the camps chosen deliberately rather than assumed, and we will tell you which ones work.
Is the green season worth it?
For a second visit, absolutely. December to March in the Kalahari is spectacular — calving, predators, storm light — and delta prices fall by up to half. The trade is thicker vegetation and some black-cotton tracks going out of use.