Botswana Safari Holidays
Bespoke Botswana safaris, expertly planned by a UK specialist with over 20 years of on-the-ground experience.
Botswana is one of Africa's greatest safari destinations: vast, wild, deliberately uncrowded, and extraordinary in every season. Whether you are dreaming of drifting through the Okavango Delta by mokoro, watching elephant herds stream across the Chobe floodplains, or tracking wild dogs through the Linyanti, I can plan a Botswana safari that is built around exactly who you are as a traveller. Every trip I arrange is completely bespoke, ATOL protected, and backed by 20 years of personal experience travelling and planning safaris in this remarkable country.
Why Choose Botswana for Your Safari?
Botswana made a deliberate choice decades ago: low-volume, high-value tourism. The result is a safari experience that feels genuinely exclusive. Camps are small — most have ten tents or fewer. Private concessions mean you can go off-road, follow animals on foot, and spend an entire morning with a leopard without another vehicle in sight.
If I were forced to name a favourite safari destination — under extreme duress, protesting loudly that I loved them all equally — it would be Botswana. Nowhere else in Africa feels quite as untouched. It is bigger than France, and half of it is full of free-roaming wildlife. That is not a figure of speech. That is simply Botswana.
The wildlife density is extraordinary. Botswana is home to the largest elephant population on earth, concentrated around the Chobe River and fanning out across vast wilderness areas where lions, leopards, wild dogs, buffalo, and enormous herds of plains game move freely. The birdlife is exceptional too — with over 550 recorded species, it is a paradise for wildlife photographers and birdwatchers alike.
Botswana is not the cheapest safari destination in Africa — and that is entirely by design. The cost reflects the quality of the experience and, crucially, a direct investment in conservation. When you travel to Botswana, your money is actively protecting some of the most important wilderness on the continent.
Botswana's Key Safari Areas
Botswana has five distinct safari regions, each offering a completely different landscape, wildlife profile, and style of experience. Most itineraries combine two or three areas — I can help you choose the right combination for your interests, travel dates, and budget.
Okavango Delta Safari: Africa's Inland Sea
The Okavango Delta is Botswana's most iconic destination — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the world's largest inland delta. It is one of the most extraordinary ecosystems on earth: a vast wetland that floods from within, nourished by rains that fell in Angola months earlier and travelled over 1,200 kilometres to arrive just as Botswana's dry season begins.
Most Delta camps are inaccessible by road, so you fly in by light aircraft — tiny five-seater planes that skim low over papyrus channels and lily-covered lagoons before bumping down on a grass airstrip. That flight is part of the magic.
Activities vary by season and water level: mokoro safaris gliding silently through water lily channels, boat safaris as water levels rise, walking safaris on the Delta's islands, and game drives through mopane woodland and open floodplains. The wildlife list is exceptional — elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, hippo, wild dog, red lechwe, and some of the finest birding anywhere in Africa.
Lucie's recommendation: The Okavango deserves an absolute minimum of three nights — ideally four or five. For longer stays I suggest combining two camps in different parts of the Delta to experience the contrast between deep-water channels and drier woodland areas. Camps range from authentic tented experiences like Delta Camp and Shinde Footsteps through to the ultra-luxury of Jao and Xigera.