Botswana Okavango Delta

One of the world’s few inland deltas, the Okavango Delta is a vast ecosystem created as the Okavango River flows 1,300km into the parched Kalahari Desert. This immense oasis radiates across 22,000km², fluctuating with the seasons, and contains a network of winding channels and small forested islands. It acts as a gigantic watering hole and buffet for 164 different mammal species, including Africa’s largest herds of elephants. Lions stalk buffalo through the papyrus, antelope rear tottering calves during the ‘green season’, and some 440 varieties of bird flock here. This is a remarkable region, beautifully conserved and carefully maintained. It ranks as one of the best all-encompassing safari destinations in the world, as spectacular as the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and the Masai Mara, while remaining just that bit more off the beaten track.

Many travelers prefer to visit the delta during the drier season, from May to October, as it normally guarantees the best animal encounters. Wildlife flocks here as the surrounding desert dries out, to graze the lush vegetation and hunt. This is also the best time to go take a mokoro canoe trip. May and June are chilly, but by October the weather is stifling, peaking in the high 30s, with dust clouds waiting to be dispersed by summer rains.

Unusually, bush walks, off-road safaris and night time game drives are permitted across much of the delta. So, too, are mokoro canoe rides – a unique opportunity to experience the ecosystem at water level, eye to eye with hippos and herons. This is also a wonderful way to engage with the people who live on the edges of the delta; chat to your guide as he or she poles you through the swamps to learn about life in one of Africa’s last great wildernesses.

From here, there’s also the potential to press on into Zambia to see Victoria Falls. Many tours, though, fly southeast from here, to incorporate the vast Makgadikgadi Pans, for instance, where wildebeest, zebra and flamingos await. Although flying is the easiest way to travel internally, overland adventures in large safari trucks, setting up bush camps along the way, are a more economical way of exploring the Okavango.

The first reserve in Botswana to be established by local communities, Moremi was set up in 1963 by the BaTwana tribal authorities, who were fighting back against expanding farms and uncontrolled hunting. Moremi protects a tapestry of islands, swamps, forests, grasslands and channels – an unspoiled ecosystem providing a glimpse of the African wilderness at its best. The Big Five can be seen here, along with over 400 bird species; look out for lions stalking buffalo in the reeds.

The sacred Tsodilo Hills, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, offers a rare slice of ancient Kalahari culture. Huge rocks stand sentry over the surrounding flat landscape, containing some 4,000 examples of rock art; many are thousands of years old, preserved by the parched desert air. Standard itineraries rarely reach this remote spot, but it can be requested as an add-on – a guided tour reveals the rocks’ spiritual secrets.