Questions about where and when

Because the water is not Botswana’s. It falls in the Angolan highlands months earlier and takes that long to travel down the river system, so the Delta fills during Botswana’s dry, cool months.

It is the single most useful fact in Botswana planning, and it explains why the country’s peak season is so firmly peak: the best water months coincide with the months when game concentrates around water everywhere else.

Only if there is water where you are staying, on your dates. Many Delta camps are seasonal — they offer water activities when the flood is up and game drives when it is not — and a brochure lists everything a camp can ever do.

Ask the specific question: on my exact dates, what will the activities at this camp be? It has a one-sentence answer and it prevents the commonest Botswana disappointment.

Possibly, and we would rather say so early than build a plan that technically fits and quietly removes what made it worth doing. There is very little at the bottom of the market here, by deliberate policy.

Before concluding that, try moving the dates into a shoulder month and reducing to two regions. Those two changes together move a Botswana total more than any camp substitution will.

A weight limit commonly in the region of 20kg per person including hand luggage, in a soft-sided bag — the hold is a curved space with no room for a rigid frame, and it is enforced at the strip.

Camps do laundry daily, which is what makes it workable. Leave a hard case at your first hotel and pack for four days rather than fourteen.

It combines with Botswana more easily than anything else in the region and it makes a natural arrival or departure. Two nights suits most people.

It is not a safari and we would not present it as one — a spectacular natural sight with a town attached, best placed at one end of a trip rather than in the middle.

The Delta, plus one dry region — usually a Linyanti or Selinda concession, or a land camp in another part of the Delta. That gives you water activities and vehicle-based game viewing with night drives, which is two different kinds of day.

The Kalahari is a superb second trip and a green-season specialist. Chobe earns two nights at one end if you are coming through Victoria Falls.

A Botswana safari is usually quoted fully inclusive: accommodation, all meals, park and conservancy fees, your guide and vehicle, and transport between parks. Most camps include soft drinks, house wine, beer and laundry.

Not included: international flights, visas or travel authorisation, travel insurance, tips, premium drinks, and extras like balloon flights and spa treatments.

For July to October — the migration months in the Masai Mara — six to twelve months is normal, and the best small camps sell out first. Christmas and New Year book up just as early.

For the shoulder months, three to four months is usually comfortable. Inside eight weeks we can still put a very good trip together, but you are choosing from what is left rather than from everything.

This site is a planning guide. When you send an enquiry it goes to Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Kenya, who prepare your itinerary and quote and handle the booking, the payments and you on the ground.

You deal with one team from the first email to the airport transfer home.

No. Sending your dates, getting an itinerary and getting a costed quote is free and carries no obligation. Money only changes hands when you decide to hold space at a camp.

The safari areas themselves are well run, and camps take guest safety seriously. The practical risks are ordinary travel risks: road transfers, sun, stomach upsets and not listening to your guide around animals.

Check your own government’s current travel advice for Botswana before you book and again before you fly, and take out insurance that covers medical evacuation. We will not tell you an area is fine if the advice says otherwise.