Botswana's Premium Safari

Join trip at Maun Airport and drive to Khwai river (Okavango Delta). Our trip begins at Maun Airport (MUB) at 3.30pm, the latest your flight can land is 3pm. We will travel together as a group by 4WD safari vehicles to the Khwai River, part of the Delta, our base for the next three nights. Our lodge will be either Mogotlho Safari Lodge which occupies an outstanding position on the Khwai River or the outstanding Hyena Pan in Khwai Private Reserve, adjacent to Moremi National Park. Both offer spacious luxury safari tents complete with en-suite bathrooms and a separate dining deck and lounge areas for the best possible wildlife viewing.

We will enjoy two game drives today. Setting off for our morning game drive at first light (when predator activity is most expected), we get the chance to experience one of Africa's most natural and unspoiled wonderlands in the park with hippo, crocodile and a great variety of birds all seen in the Delta, as well as the elusive sitatunga antelope. This place is also an ornithologist's paradise with fish eagle, kingfisher, heron, stork, egret, weaver and bee-eater all regularly seen. Returning for brunch as the day starts heats up, the hottest part of the day is spent at leisure at our camp, a chance of a siesta, a dip in the pool, relax reading a book or birdwatching. Our afternoon activity departs after tea, usually around 4pm, to return in the early evening. Game drives and activities vary from one to the next, depending on sightings and animal activities, generally, we drive quite far and slowly to absolutely maximize game-viewing potential, all expertly guided by our highly experienced tour leaders. During the safaris we will travel in customised, open-sided land-cruisers for game viewings and minibus for longer drives. The Landcruisers are ideal for game viewing opportunities but can be a bit brisk and windy during the longer travel days, so ensure you bring some layers for travel days, and your tour leader will provide blankets to make the journeys as comfortable as possible. The roads through Botswana can vary in quality, so travel days can be slow and bumpy but the scenery more than makes up for this. The mighty Okavango is the third largest river in Africa and its delta area covers 16,000 square kilometres of crystal clear channels, a myriad of ephemeral lakes and ever changing islands, surviving in the Kalahari desert. The river flows south east from the Angolan highlands over 1,000 km away and takes up to 6 months to reach the delta area that floods on a perennial annual cycle. The Okavango Delta covers an enormous wilderness area composed of permanent swamps, islands, forest and dry land. Exceptional though the geography of the Delta may be, it is the amazing wildlife of the waterways that draws us.

Remaining in the Moremi or Khwai River reserves, we drive further into the Delta area. This exceptional geography and topography attracts amazing wildlife to the waterways. Your guide will generally spend maximum time on game-drives, depending on what is seen, trying to cover as much area as possible. The result of this is guests are given the best chances of seeing a variety of wildlife. Species such as Giraffe, Zebra and Wildebeest are but a few that occur here, along with an astonishing variety of birds. Hyena Pan is well known for its waterholes, we get the opportunity to view the wildlife from our ground level hide alongside the waterhole. For those departures staying at Mogotlho Safari Lodge there are excellent game view opportunities along the river adjacent to our camp.