Best of Botswana & Victoria Falls

Flying over Botswana's Forever Changing Landscape

Botswana

Flying over Botswana makes you appreciate just how vast it is. Seeing the Okavango Delta from above is an especially humbling experience – it’s so huge and unexplored. There’s the Savute region, Chobe National Park, the Boteti River and all the tiny villages and towns dotted in between. Every flight is unique. You can often see larger wildlife like elephants, buffaloes, hippos and giraffes or you might see lions and leopards, or floods arriving and storms building. The highlight is often landing on ‘bush’ airstrips that are often just gravel or grass in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

Safari Air launched in 1989 to whisk guests between Botswana’s remote Desert & Delta camps, and it’s an incredible way to see the country. The planes are based at Maun airport and depart whenever guests need them. Flights can be anything from 10 to 70 minutes, depending on routes. They’re light aircrafts – Cessna Airvans and Cessna Grand Caravans – fitting between six and 11 people, so they’re about the size of a small bus. You can see the pilot sitting in the front, which is an experience in itself. The pilot conducts a short briefing on the flight before passengers are flown to and in between each destination. For guests who’ve just flown into Johannesburg or Cape Town on a huge Boeing and then landed in Maun, it’s an especially exciting – sometimes overwhelming – experience.

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Okavango Delta Safari By Foot and Mokoro

Okavango Delta

Among the lagoons, channels, woodlands and islands of the Okavango Delta, you will be blessed with some of the most incredible wildlife-spotting in Botswana. There are several different ways to experience the region. Among the most popular activities are the walking safaris where being on foot gives you a completely different perspective.

Motorboats take guests to one of the islands to embark on a hike with an armed ranger. As you cruise along the river you might spot hippos, crocodiles or occasionally the rare sitatunga antelope. The morning light on the papyrus plants and water lilies is always beautiful.

Once on the island, you follow the guide in single-file, stopping to see wildlife while learning about the medicinal properties of the plants. It's a good opportunity to see the smaller things that might have been overlooked on a game drive, like the foam nest frog, which produces a fascinating nest in the tree. You can learn so much from even a pile of dung; you can see what the baboons have been scratching at and what the dung beetles have been busy at.

Seeing big game on foot is always special too – it might be an elephant, a buffalo, a giraffe or even a lion. Occasionally you might be lucky enough to see a full pride. Being on foot gives you a completely different perspective of the size of these animals.

The highlight of the delta for many is heading out on a mokoro trip – you’re ‘poled’ through the shallow waterways in a traditional wooden canoe, gliding through reeds and waterlilies as you pass elephants, hippos, crocodiles, fish eagle birds and other wildlife. It’s a really peaceful way to see the channels. Watching the sun set over the water is one of the favourite sights in the delta.

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Sleep Out in the Bush at Camp Okavango

Okavango Delta

Camp Okavango has a prime position in the delta and to fully experience its setting, from April to October and for an extra cost, you can sleep out on a deck in the middle of the bush. After a private afternoon activity, you will be driven to the sleep out deck where a candlelit dinner will be served.

It’s about a 10-minute drive from the lodge, in a really remote area, with a double bed and bathroom set up on a raised, stilted platform. The deck is totally open apart from mosquito nets, so expect to hear plenty of night sounds. You can see and hear plenty of wildlife passing by beneath you – hippos grazing on the grassy area around it, reminding you you’re in the Okavango Delta. You may also hear owls, elephants, and sometimes the lion’s roar. It can get cold in the night, so bring lots of warm layers, but there are hot water bottles in the bed to keep you warm, and because it’s the dry season, there aren’t many insects around. Sleeping under the stars in the middle of nowhere might not be for everyone, but for guests after a real adventure, it’s an amazing way to experience the bush. Your guide will leave you for the night, staying close by so they are on call if needed and you will also be given a radio. In the morning, your guide will arrive with tea and coffee.

One of the biggest draws is sleeping under the clear night sky; the stars are very bright here as there’s no light pollution, and you can often see satellites going over. In the morning there’s an amazing sunrise over the delta, as the deck faces the east.

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Helicopter Flight over the Okavango Delta

Okavango Delta

People talk about Botswana as the last true wilderness – of course there are other places in the world that are equally remote, but there aren’t many other safari destinations that feel this wild and cut off. Experience the full remoteness with a helicopter flight over the Okavango Delta. Choose from 30, 45 and 60 minute flights and to make it a little more adventurous, you have the option of flying with the doors off. The unrestricted views are amazing for photography.

An early morning flight reveals the waking wildlife. With unhindered views you can marvel at mighty oxbow rivers and vast networks of channels and lagoons without the presence of mankind. Ask the pilot to fly low and you can virtually skim the fig canopies to get a closer look at the Okavango’s exquisite game. This could include huge crocodile basking on the sun-drenched banks, hippo wallowing in the shallows and spectacular birdlife from great white pelican to diverse species of long necked herons. You’ll often hear the call of a lion roar over the wetlands. Your pilot, a top safari guide will point out where a pride might be roaming or where to capture the best panoramic picture.

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Safari in Moremi Game Reserve

Moremi Game Reserve

The Moremi Game Reserve is known for its different ecosystems. The landscapes change from deep waterways and floodplains to open savannah and forests which attracts a huge range of wildlife.

You may see lions, buffaloes, wildebeest, giraffes, zebras and impalas. If you’re lucky you might spot a cheetah or a leopard. The highlight for many, though, is seeing the endangered wild dog – they’re exceptional hunters and you often see large packs together. The area is also home to the rare lechwe and sitatunga antelopes as well as big herds of elephants.

Game drives will take you to see all this, visiting different spots like Douglas Island, Maya Pan and Dead Tree Island, which is named for its landscape of barren mopane trees, which drowned when the channel changed. At Paradise Pools you may see antelopes drink around the watering holes next to swamps filled with reeds. These islands offer amazing flora and fauna and are popular grazing areas for a variety of animals and birdlife.

As well as game drives, you can join motorboat tours on the lagoons and channels, with chances to spot hippos, crocodiles and lots of colourful birdlife – especially in the spring and summer, when migrant birds are breeding. Fish eagles, crested cranes and the sacred ibis are among the birds that call this area home, and you will get a different perspective when you see it all from the water. Sundowners in the bush as the sun sets is a memory that will stay with you.

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Chobe Game Lodge Safari

Chobe National Park

Chobe Game Lodge offers riverboat safaris as well as 4×4 game drives and, as the only camp located inside Chobe National Park, there is the chance to see wildlife before anyone else arrives. Game drives will take you deep into the national park, which is home to the largest population of elephants in Africa. On the riverboat safaris, you will glide silently along the Chobe. You will stop for sundowners in a big open area where animals come to drink.

Morning game drives set off at around 5.30am, stopping for coffee and biscuits in the bush halfway through, and in the afternoon you will leave at 3.30pm before returning to the lodge for sundowners. You will go deep into the national park, which is home to the largest population of elephants in Africa – around 120,000. You may see large herds of elephants as well as lions, buffaloes, wildebeest, giraffes, antelopes and, if you’re lucky, the occasional leopard lazing in the trees. Lechwe flats is a favourite game viewing area with guests and the landscapes are amazing too; you can see the beautiful Chobe River with views across to Namibia as you cross the dry, dusty plains.

On the riverboat safaris, you will head out in the afternoon in small pontoons, which are all electric and solar-powered. Glide silently along the Chobe, heading west away from the other boats, so that you are usually the only boat in the area. You may spot crocodiles and hippos in the water as well as elephants and other animals on the riverbank. There are lots of birds too, including fish eagles hunting from the river. After a couple of hours, you will stop for sundowners in a big open area beside the river, where animals come to drink. Watch the sun set over the river, which is always spectacular – all deep reds and oranges, reflecting on the water below.

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Ra-Ikane Sunset River Cruise

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Step back in time to a more gracious era with an indulgent late-afternoon Zambezi cruise on an elegant vintage-style boat. The three vessels in the Ra-Ikane fleet were inspired by the design of David Livingstone’s expedition craft, the Ma-Robert, and feature plenty of gleaming teak and brass. Carrying just 12 to 16 passengers, along with a captain-guide and a waiter, they’re a wonderfully stylish and intimate venue from which to drink in the beauty of the pristine wilderness.

You’ll depart from the jetty 3.5km above the Falls and glide quietly up the Zambezi and then down in a circular route, admiring the scenery while the crew keep you supplied with canapės and your choice of drinks. This stretch of the river is broad and shallow, and the captain will skillfully steer you through narrow channels between islands teeming with game, sharing his knowledge of local history and wildlife. The Ra-Ikanes’ small size allows them to go where the larger boats can’t, so you’re all but certain to have close encounters with hippos, crocodiles and elephants, along with a host of other animals and birds, along the way.

The grand finale to the two-hour trip is a dazzling African sunset, with the changing colours of the vast sky reflected in the lake-still water for as far as the eye can see – a truly breath-taking sight. As darkness begins to fall, you’ll return to the jetty for your return transfer to your local hotel.

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Moonbows at Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Lunar rainbows are a rare phenomenon, and there are very few places in the world where the conditions are just right to see them. Luckily, Victoria Falls is one of them and going out to the Falls at night to catch sight of them is a magical experience. You need to be here at full moon, or a day on either side, to see lunar rainbows because that’s the only time the moonlight is powerful enough.

High season is best because there’s more spray, though that means you have to be prepared to get wet. Even then, they’re not as bright as rainbows from the sun, though somehow that only makes them seem more fragile and more extraordinary.

You'll be walking in the dark and, as there are animals such as warthogs, baboons and monkeys in the rainforest, you will be accompanied by a National Park ranger. Follow the ranger in single file until you get almost to the end of the Falls, and then turn around to have the full moon behind you and start viewing at, appropriately named, Rainbow Falls. Go slowly back along the path to the entrance, stopping at important places such as the Main Falls, where you will be given a bit of history about what you can see from the various viewpoints and how to get the best  photographs of this natural spectacle.

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Tour of the Falls

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Take in the majesty of Victoria Falls on a two-hour guided visit that will bring you face to face with one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. This extraordinary waterfall was created over millions of years as the constant pounding of the mighty Zambezi River eroded what began as a narrow fissure in the basalt plain into what you see today, so its waters now plunge dramatically into a chasm around 75m wide and 108m deep.

Once through the entrance of the National Park, you’ll begin with a visit to the statue of Dr David Livingstone, where you’ll learn about his first encounter with the Falls, his reactions and his role in spreading its fame to the wider world. From here, you’ll continue along the path facing the Falls, stopping at the viewpoints along the way and, conditions permitting, descending the Chain Walk for a closer view of Devil’s Cataract and Cataract Island. Between March to July, when the river is at its highest, you can feel the ground shaking and the noise is incredible.

The spray, which rises high into the air and looks just like smoke and creates a unique ecosystem on the opposite side of the chasm, supporting a dense rainforest rich in plant, insect and animal life. As you walk through it, your guide will give you a brief explanation of how the Falls were formed along with pointing out some of the more interesting plants, birds and other points of interest.

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Home Cooking in Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

This experience will give you a greater understanding what the Victoria Falls local communities are like: what they eat, their day-to-day activities and their culture. On these homestead-hosted meals, you'll get to try a range of local dishes.

You'll be picked up from your hotel and taken to a family homestead. You will be welcomed and given a small introduction as to where you before sharing a meal with the family. As there are many different tribes and communities in Victoria Falls, as you eat, the family have a chance to tell the story of their own culture.

On these homestead-hosted meals, you'll get to try a range of local dishes such as a thick porridge made from corn, which is a bit like polenta. There may be beef and chicken stew and some greens prepared in different ways. Try delicacies, such as groundnuts from nearby villages and mopane worms, which are full of protein and highly recommended for good health which you can be fried, have as a snack, mixed into your stew or used as a relish with your polenta.

The families have a chance to share their traditions and customs with people from other countries, make a cultural connection and be paid a fee for doing it.  It’s an experience that benefits everyone.

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Canopy Tour at Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

If you’re looking for a fun adventure that you can do together as a family, the Wild Horizon’s Canopy Tour is a great choice. With two guides to help you, you will glide in a group through the Zambezi gorge forest on a series of nine zip wires and a cable bridge walkway.

Along the way you have more time to enjoy the spectacular views of the gorge, the rapids on the Zambezi, the Victoria Falls Bridge and the spray from the waterfall. You'll also see the forest from every angle – above, below and in the middle of the canopy – so you might spot some of the birds that live in the forest too.

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