The best things to do in Gaborone are Kgale Hill at sunrise, Mokolodi Nature Reserve, the Three Dikgosi Monument in the CBD, the game reserve off Limpopo Drive, and the rock engravings at Matsieng and Manyana. Two days covers the city and its edges. Most of the good things sit outside town, so a hire car earns its keep, and May to August is the window.
Gaborone was farmland in 1964 and a national capital by 1966, built from nothing in three years because independence needed a seat inside the country. It reads that way: low, planned, spread wide, and short on the old quarter most visitors go looking for. What it has instead is bush at the edge of the suburbs.
The Sleeping Giant tops out at 1,287 metres and hands you the city, the dam and the border hills in one turn of the head. An hour up a rocky path, less coming down. The resident chacma baboons keep their distance if you keep yours.
The closest real bush to the capital, ten kilometres down the Lobatse road. Game drives, guided walks and rhino tracking all leave from the gate. It is a working sanctuary rather than a park with guarantees, so a sighting is earned.
Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I sailed to London in 1895 and talked the British out of handing Bechuanaland to Cecil Rhodes and his company. The three bronzes stand 5.4 metres each, unveiled in 2005, ringed by six plinths that carry the story to independence.
One of the smallest protected areas in Botswana, opened in 1988 and set a kilometre from a shopping centre. A single gravel loop takes under an hour in an ordinary car, and the birdlife alone justifies the binoculars in the glovebox.
A national monument half an hour north of the city: up to 117 engravings of human and animal tracks cut into a sandstone pan around three natural rock holes. Setswana tradition holds this is where the first people and their cattle climbed out of the earth.
Seven hectares along the Notwane, planted by plant community rather than by flowerbed, so you cross from Kalahari sandveld to riverine woodland in twenty minutes. The quietest green in the city and the easiest birding in it.
Giraffe, antelope, human figures and geometric marks spread over five panels of cliff face, made by Khoe herders somewhere between 1100 and 1700. The tree where David Livingstone taught reading stands in the same village.
A weaving cooperative founded in 1973 and owned outright by the women who run it. They spin, dye and weave wall hangings of rural scenes on floor looms you can stand beside, and the shop sells whatever has just come off the frame.
Set up in 1970 to sell rural craft at a fair price, and still the deepest stock in the country: coiled Ngamiland baskets, San ostrich-shell work, carving and textiles. The Courtyard restaurant sits behind the shop.
The original spine of the planned city: a pedestrian street under jacarandas with no cars on it, government offices at the far end, craft and curio vendors set up down the middle. The best half hour anywhere for reading the capital.
The largest man-made water in Botswana. The yacht club sits on an island reached by causeway, with an open-air bar over the water.
The only 18-hole championship course in the country, fifteen kilometres north of the centre and open to visitors.
Built in 1967, a year after the capital itself, and the shorter, older, closer-in alternative at 6,361 yards off the back tees.
The steady favourite in Gaborone for two decades. Portuguese cooking, seafood the house specialty, quiet garden tables.
South Indian cooking with a Chinese menu alongside it, and the vegetarian list that residents name first.
Braai, Tswana plates and American-style barbecue in a backyard setting, upstairs at the oldest mall in the country.
Three venues in one: a pub, an outdoor bar and a dance floor. Live music, quiz nights and the sport on screens. The default answer.
A restaurant that becomes a bar, and the reliable Thursday. Happy hour runs from five to seven.
In the iTowers block in the CBD, and the one venue in Gaborone people go to for the music programming rather than the room.
The first mall in Botswana, opened in 2002 and small enough to still feel like a place rather than a floor plan.
The largest in Gaborone, over a hundred stores after the 2023 expansion, sat under Kgale Hill on the southwest edge.
Opened in 2012 with 45,800 square metres of retail, on the road in from the airport. The last stop before a flight.
Local businesses rather than chains, and a craft market on Fridays that is the best browse in the city outside Main Mall.
Western Bypass, unglamorous, and where a working week actually gets its groceries. Chutney is upstairs.
A membership organisation founded in 1998, running studios, residencies and shows out of an old house in The Village.
On Independence Avenue and rebuilding since 2016. Parts remain closed, so treat it as a stop to check rather than to plan around.
The pedestrian street, the ministries and the Three Dikgosi Monument. Busy at lunchtime, empty by seven.
Extension 15, out by Riverwalk. Older trees, embassies, the botanical garden and most of the restaurants worth a taxi.
An older suburb northeast of the centre, cheaper, more local, and the way in to the game reserve off Limpopo Drive.
Fifteen kilometres north up the A1 and effectively its own town: two malls, schools, a cinema and the golf estate.
Across the Notwane on the road to the South African border at Tlokweng Gate. Guesthouses rather than hotels.
A recreated Hurutshe village near Mmankgodi, with dancing, craft and a Sunday brunch of Setswana food. Rondavels if you stay.
The Bakgatla capital, and a museum in the 1923 schoolhouse on the hill holding photographs from the early 1900s.
A reserve declared in 1985 around one red sandstone hill, protecting a Cape vulture colony that has nested there for centuries.
The Bangwaketse capital, 83 km southwest and continuously occupied. Kgwakgwe Hill, the gorge and the main kgotla.
Marathon, half and 10K on closed city roads. The 2026 edition ran on 26 April.
Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday are all public holidays, so the capital runs on a four-day weekend.
A public holiday on the first president’s birthday. Wreath-laying, and everything official shuts.
A mid-July public holiday with a second day off attached. Banks and government offices close for both.
The country’s main performing arts festival, run out of the Maitisong theatre. Recent editions have fallen in August.
Seven shows in seven days since 2014: jazz, theatre, poetry, comedy and fashion, closing in the first week of September.
Independence, declared on 30 September 1966. A public holiday, and a second one the following day.
The trees along Main Mall and the older extensions turn purple at the end of the dry season.
The busiest airport in the country, 15 km north of the centre and about twenty minutes in. Air Botswana is based here, and regional carriers link Johannesburg and the East African hubs.
Two overnight passenger trains cross each night between Lobatse and Francistown, calling at Gaborone, Mahalapye, Palapye and Serule. Book at the station rather than online.
Fifteen-seat minibuses run fixed routes across the city for a flat fare of a few pula, set by the Department of Transport. Flag one down, pay on board, say where you want off.
Meters are rare, so agree the fare before you get in. Ride-hailing apps operate in Gaborone and are the simpler option after dark or out to Mokolodi.
Beef or goat simmered in salt and water, then pounded soft in a three-legged pot. The national dish.
Sorghum or maize porridge, stiff enough to eat by hand. The plate under almost everything else.
Sorghum left to ferment before it is cooked, so the porridge arrives sour. Usually breakfast.
Wild greens, pumpkin or cowpea leaves, cooked down with onion and tomato.
The caterpillar of the mopane moth, dried then fried or stewed. Chewy, smoky and very high in protein.
Soured milk, thick as yoghurt, drunk on its own or stirred through porridge.
Samp cooked with beans or cowpeas until the pot holds together. The everyday side.
Tripe and offal cleaned and slow-cooked. Feast food, and a test of how local a menu really is.
Get our one-page Gaborone cheat sheet plus a fresh destination every Thursday.
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