Wild Botswana: Safari, Okavango Delta & Victoria Falls

On arrival, you’ll be welcomed at the airport and transferred to our accommodation in Maun to freshen up and settle in. Once the whole group has arrived, we’ll kick off the trip with a welcome dinner and run through the upcoming adventure.

Everyone has heard of Bolivia’s famous salt flats, but far fewer people have heard of Botswana’s Ntwetwe Salt Pans, despite being every bit as spectacular. We’ll jump in a 4x4 and head deep into this otherworldly landscape, where vast stretches of glistening white salt seem to disappear into the horizon.

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Along the way, we’ll meet a resident gang of meerkats, discover ancient baobab trees, and keep watch for the wildlife that has adapted to life in the harsh Kalahari Desert.

Today, we’ll explore another corner of the vast Makgadikgadi salt pans, heading into Nxai Pan National Park in search of wildlife. With its endless open plains, salt pans, and scattered baobabs, this surreal landscape makes for a safari experience unlike anywhere else in Botswana.

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Nxai Pan is home to some of Botswana’s most fascinating desert-adapted wildlife, including zebra, wildebeest, springbok, and the elephants known as the “ghosts of Nxai Pan” for their habit of covering themselves in white clay dust. With a little luck, we could also spot lions, cheetahs, and hyenas roaming across the plains.

It’s time for the safari to begin! We’ll head towards Sankuyo, a community-managed wildlife concession on the eastern edge of the Okavango Delta, stopping at Shorobe Basket Cooperative along the way. The cooperative preserves traditional basket weaving while creating income and opportunities for local women, and we’ll get to try our hand at the craft too.

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As soon as we enter the concession, the game drive begins. Sankuyo’s mix of woodland, grassland and wetlands is home to lions, leopards, wild dogs, elephants and plenty more. We’ll arrive at our fully set-up mobile camp, where the team will be waiting to welcome us into the wilderness.

We’ll start the day with an early morning game drive, when wildlife is most active. Our expert guide will put their knowledge of the Delta to work as we track wildlife and see what we can find.

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Later, we’ll swap the safari vehicle for a traditional mokoro, gliding silently through the Okavango Delta’s reed-lined channels. A local guide called a "poler" stands at the back and pushes the boat forward with a long wooden pole called a "ngashi".

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From the water, keep an eye out for elephants, hippos, crocodiles, red lechwe and colourful birdlife.

We’ll spend the day exploring Moremi Game Reserve, one of Africa’s premier wildlife destinations, stopping along the way for bush coffee and a lunch-with-a-view. 

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Its mix of floodplains, lagoons, woodland, grassland and waterways creates the perfect habitat for elephants, buffalo, lions, leopards, wild dogs and an incredible variety of birdlife. 

In Botswana, even the travel days are part of the safari. As we make our way to Savute, we’ll continue looking out for wildlife and taking in the changing landscapes along the way. Located in the southwest of Chobe National Park, Savute is famous for its unpredictable channel and thriving predator populations.

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Our mobile camp and team will travel with us, setting up camp in another remote spot in the wilderness.

The safari routine might stay the same – sunrise breakfast, game drive, downtime at camp, then back out for a sunset drive – but the wildlife never does. 

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Every drive brings the possibility of something completely different around the next corner. Hopefully, Savute is kind to us and delivers some incredible big-cat sightings along the way. 

Botswana is home to the largest elephant population in the world, with around 130,000 elephants, and roughly 50,000 of them live around Chobe. During the dry season, huge herds gather along the Chobe River each afternoon to drink, bathe and swim, and it’s not unusual to see 100–200 elephants together.

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After packing up camp in Savute, we’ll head to Kasane for an afternoon cruise along the Chobe River, giving us a front-row seat to one of Botswana’s most incredible wildlife spectacles.

We’ll say goodbye to Botswana and cross into Zimbabwe, where we’ll visit the mighty Victoria Falls, known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya – “The Smoke That Thunders”. Straddling the Zimbabwe–Zambia border, the falls stretch for more than a kilometre across the Zambezi River, creating an incredible wall of spray as the water plunges into the gorge below.

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After exploring the falls, we’ll enjoy a traditional Zimbabwean lunch at Lusumpuko Women’s Club before rounding off our final night together with a special farewell dinner and show!

It’s time to say goodbye to your awesome tour guide, fellow travellers turned new friends, and the wonderful countries of Botswana and Zimbabwe. We’ll drop you off at Victoria Falls International Airport, ready for your flight home. 

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There’s so much more to see and do around Victoria Falls that we simply couldn’t fit into the itinerary. If you have the time, why not add an extra day or two and explore the area at your own pace?