I like to think of Botswana as one of the jewels in the crown of Southern Africa. As it’s such an immense country, with some of Africa’s largest protected wilderness areas, exploring the country by vehicle is the best way to make some dents on your bucket list.
The stand-out destination is of course the Okavango Delta; exploring this mosaic of floodplains, islands and channels delivers sightings of animals and birds that may be scarce elsewhere, but have a stronghold in the swamps.
Northern Botswana is defined and demarcated by the seasonal movement of water, and it’s often where the land and waters meet that the best safari experiences take place. You really get a sense of the inter-connectedness of all life when you go lagoon hopping in Linyanti, or take a meandering guided safari along the Savute Channel, which may be a ribbon of savannah, or a river, at the time of your African safari.
Botswana is big-sky country, and it’s a veritable sea of land, as you’ll begin to understand if you explore the Chobe floodplains. This much space means that Botswana can still boast substantial wildlife populations. Catch them on the move when you get dazzled by the Makgadikgadi Zebra Migration, or come to pay homage to black-maned lion in the Central Kalahari.
