--- title: "Botswana travel guide: the delta, Chobe and Kalahari | Wimup" description: "Botswana on Wimup: how the country splits into four trips, when the flood arrives, what it costs, what to eat, and what to know before you book." url: https://wimup.com/country/botswana type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-05 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Botswana More elephants than any other country on earth, **a delta that floods in the dry season** and never reaches the sea, and a tourism model built on small camps rather than crowds. Botswana is **the safari country that decided scarcity was the product**. ## Quick answer Build the trip from two or three blocks in the north, and let the water set the order. **The Okavango Delta** is the draw, reached from **Maun** by light aircraft, with the flood highest from June to August. **Chobe**, entered at **Kasane**, is the elephant half, best seen from the river. **Savuti** and **Linyanti** hold the predators. Further south, the **Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans** give salt flats and the zebra migration, and the **Central Kalahari** gives space. Ten days pairs the delta with Chobe. Two weeks adds the pans. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Jul · Aug · Sep - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $180–900 - **Language:** English & Setswana - **Getting around:** Light aircraft, 4x4 & transfers - **1** City guide - **2,359,609** People - **131,909** Elephants - **38%** Land protected Botswana travels north to south in a straight line, and almost every trip is built from three or four blocks. Maun is the gateway to the Okavango Delta, a fan of channels and islands the size of a small country that fills each winter with water that fell in Angola months earlier, reached by light aircraft and mokoro rather than road. Kasane sits at the top of the country on the Chobe River, where the dry-season elephant concentrations are the densest in Africa and the boat is the better game drive. Between and below them are the Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans, salt flats left by an ancient lake, and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, 52,800 square kilometres of thornveld with black-maned lions in it. Gaborone in the far south is the capital and the seat of the diamond economy rather than a safari base, and Tsodilo Hills in the northwest holds thousands of rock paintings on quartzite. English is the official language and Setswana the national one, the roads between towns are tarred and the ones inside the parks are not, and the camps are small on purpose, which is what makes the country expensive and quiet in equal measure. ## 1 Botswana city guide 1. [Gaborone](https://wimup.com/city/gaborone.md): Botswana · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 2,359,609 - **Area:** 581,730 km² - **Density:** 4.1 / km² - **Capital:** Gaborone - **Major cities:** Gaborone, Francistown, Mogoditshane, Maun, Molepolole - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Botswana pula (BWP), 100 thebe - **Language:** English (official), Setswana (national) - **Calling code:** +267 - **Power:** 230V, 50Hz, plug types D, G and M - **Emergency:** 999 police, 997 ambulance, 998 fire - **Visa:** Visa-free for 100+ nationalities, up to 90 days - **Getting around:** Light aircraft in the north, tarred trunk roads, 4x4 in the parks - **Driving:** On the left, and not after dark between towns - **Tipping:** Expected in camps, usually guide and general staff separately - **Cards:** Widely accepted in towns and camps, cash for fuel and rural stops - **Health:** Malaria area in the north, prophylaxis normally advised - **Time zone:** UTC+2, no daylight saving ## When to visit - **Jan** (good): Green season, thunderstorms and newborn animals in the Kalahari - **Feb**: The wettest month, lush and empty, with some camps closed - **Mar**: Rain easing, birding at its best, rates still low - **Apr** (good): The bush dries out and the first flood water reaches the delta - **May** (best): Dry, mild and quiet, with the flood rising through the channels - **Jun** (best): Cold nights, clear days, and the flood approaching its peak - **Jul** (peak): Peak flood and peak season, booked far ahead and priced for it - **Aug** (peak): The best game viewing of the year, and the busiest camps - **Sep** (best): Hot, dry and thinning out, with animals pinned to the water - **Oct** (good): The hottest month, superb sightings and hard afternoons - **Nov** (good): First rains break the heat, the pans fill and the zebra move - **Dec**: Wet, green and quiet, with holiday rates in the popular camps ## Fun fact The 2022 KAZA aerial survey counted 131,909 elephants in Botswana, the largest national population on earth. They have room: about 38 per cent of the country is park, reserve or wildlife management area. The Okavango Delta was inscribed in June 2014 as the 1000th UNESCO World Heritage site. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Botswana is one long stretch of desert. **Reality:** The Kalahari covers most of the country, but it is thornveld and grass, home to lion, oryx and brown hyena. The northwest is wetland: the permanent Okavango, the Chobe river and the Linyanti swamps. You can be poled through a channel in the morning and stand on a salt flat in the afternoon. - **Myth:** The delta floods when it rains in Botswana. **Reality:** The rain falls in the Angolan highlands and takes months to arrive. The flood reaches the delta in the middle of the Botswana dry season and peaks between June and August, so the best water and the best game viewing land in the same cold, rainless weeks. Know that before you book. - **Myth:** It is expensive because it is a luxury destination. **Reality:** It is expensive because the country keeps numbers low. Concession camps are small, beds are capped, and much of the north is reached by light aircraft, so a fly-in trip costs several hundred dollars a night per person. A self-drive with a rooftop tent and public campsites costs far less. - **Myth:** Southern Africa is politically unsteady, so plan around it. **Reality:** Botswana has held elections on schedule since independence in 1966, and in 2024 the party that had governed for 58 years lost one and handed over power. The institutions worked. Diamond revenue went into schools, clinics and roads, and the road from Gaborone to Kasane is tarred the whole way. - Greet before you ask. "Dumela rra" to a man and "Dumela mma" to a woman, then the question. Skipping straight to the request reads as rude in a way it does not elsewhere. - Pula is the currency, the word for rain, and the thing a crowd shouts at the end of a speech. In a country this dry, rain is the blessing, and the greeting carries that. - Botho is the local name for the ethic other countries call ubuntu: a person is a person through other people. It is written into the national vision and it shows up as unhurried politeness. - The kgotla is the village meeting place and the traditional court, and it is still where local matters get argued out in public. Ask before photographing one. - Cattle are wealth, status and family history as well as livestock. They also wander onto unfenced roads, so do not drive between towns after dark. - Take the elephant seriously. Kasane and Maun both have wild elephants inside the town limits, and giving them a wide berth on foot is ordinary local behaviour, not tourist caution. ## Famous Batswana faces - **Letsile Tebogo**: Olympic 200m champion in Paris in 2024, in an African record 19.46. Botswana’s first gold. - **Seretse Khama**: First president from 1966, who put the diamond revenue into the state and not his pocket. - **Bessie Head**: Serowe novelist, author of When Rain Clouds Gather, most often read as Botswana’s own. - **Unity Dow**: First woman on the High Court. Her case let women pass citizenship to their children. - **Amantle Montsho**: 400m world champion in Daegu in 2011, the first world title in Botswana’s history - **Nijel Amos**: 800m silver at London 2012, which was Botswana’s first Olympic medal of any colour - **Mpule Kwelagobe**: First Motswana Miss Universe, in 1999, later a campaigner on HIV and reproductive health. - **Duma Boko**: Rights lawyer, sixth president from November 2024, the first change of governing party. - **Isaac Makwala**: Sprinter over 200m and 400m, and the anchor of Botswana’s relay teams through the 2010s - **Ketumile Masire**: President from 1980 to 1998. As finance minister he designed the diamond agreements. - **Festus Mogae**: President from 1998 to 2008, who ran one of Africa’s most aggressive responses to HIV. - **Mokgweetsi Masisi**: President from 2018 to 2024. Conceded the vote that ended his party’s 58 years in power. - **Lauri Kubuitsile**: Novelist and short story writer, among the most published authors in Botswana today. - **Vee Mampeezy**: Singer and producer credited with kwaito kwasa, which fused kwaito with kwasa kwasa. - **Zeus**: Rapper born Game Bantsi, whose 2008 debut Freshly Baked put Setswana hip hop on radio. - **Donald Molosi**: Actor and playwright, first Motswana to perform off-Broadway, cast in A United Kingdom. ## Must-try Botswana food - **Seswaa**: The national dish. Beef or goat simmered for hours, pounded and salted. Served on pap. - **Bogobe**: Sorghum or maize porridge, the staple. Order bogobe jwa lerotse, cooked with melon. - **Phaletshe**: Stiff maize meal, the base that seswaa, stew and morogo are all served on. - **Dikgobe**: Samp cooked with cowpeas or beans until it holds. Filling, cheap and everywhere at lunch. - **Morogo**: Wild greens, usually cowpea or pumpkin leaves, cooked down with onion and tomato. - **Serobe**: Offal and tripe stewed slowly for special occasions. Eat what the household eats. - **Phane**: Mopane caterpillars, dried, then rehydrated in tomato or peanut sauce. A seasonal staple. - **Segwapa**: Air-dried salted beef, eaten by the handful on long drives. The Botswana take on biltong. - **Game meat**: Kudu, oryx and springbok, leaner and stronger than beef, usually grilled at lodges. - **Magwinya**: Fried dough balls, hot from roadside stands and bus ranks. Breakfast on the move. - **Mogodu**: Tripe stewed until soft, served with pap at street kitchens and workers’ canteens. - **Sekgowa braai**: Beef, boerewors and chicken over coals at the weekend, in serious cattle country. - **Madila**: Soured milk, thick and tangy, poured over sorghum porridge or drunk on its own. - **Bojalwa ja Setswana**: Cloudy, lightly sour sorghum beer, brewed at home and shared from one container. ## By theme - [Wildlife & safari](https://wimup.com/wildlife.md) ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Botswana? Ten days is the honest minimum for the north, because the delta and Chobe are each worth three nights and the flying between them eats a day. Seven days covers one of them properly with a night either side. Two weeks lets you add the Kalahari or the Makgadikgadi pans, which is where the country stops looking like a wildlife documentary and starts looking like nowhere else. Fewer camps and longer stays beat a night in each: every move is a flight, a transfer and a lost morning. ### When does the Okavango Delta flood? The water falls as rain in the Angolan highlands between December and March, then takes several months to travel down the Okavango River and spread across the delta. It arrives from about May and peaks between June and August, in the middle of the Botswana dry season. That is why the best water levels, the best mokoro conditions and the best game viewing all land in the same winter weeks, and why the delta looks fullest when the sky has been clear for months. ### Is Botswana too expensive for a normal budget? The fly-in version is costly: small camps in private concessions run to several hundred dollars a night per person, with light aircraft transfers on top. Self-drive costs a fraction of that. A hired 4x4 with a rooftop tent and pre-booked public campsites inside Moremi, Chobe and the Central Kalahari gets you into the same parks. Book the campsites well ahead, because they are limited on purpose. ### Do you need a visa for Botswana? Citizens of more than 100 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU states, Australia and most of southern Africa, enter without a visa for tourism for up to 90 days in a 12-month period. Your passport needs at least six months of validity and two blank pages. Rules change, so check with the Botswana immigration authority or your own foreign ministry before you book. ### Is malaria a risk in Botswana? The northern parks are malaria areas, including the Okavango Delta, Moremi, Chobe, Linyanti and Savuti, and transmission is higher through the wet months from about November to April. Prophylaxis is normally advised for those regions, and the practical measures matter as much: cover up at dusk, use repellent, sleep under the net the camp provides. See a travel medicine clinic before departure, because the right drug depends on the traveller. ### What is the best month to visit Botswana? August, if you are choosing one. The flood is high, the bush is thin, the animals are concentrated on permanent water and the days are clear and mild. It is also the most expensive and the most booked, so July and September are the sensible near-misses. If cost matters more than peak game viewing, the green season from November to March cuts camp rates sharply and gives you newborn animals, migrant birds and a Kalahari that is briefly green. ## Related countries - [Morocco](https://wimup.com/country/morocco.md) - [Algeria](https://wimup.com/country/algeria.md) - [All of Africa](https://wimup.com/africa) Part of [Africa](https://wimup.com/africa.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.botswanatourism.co.bw/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.