Botswana · Southern Africa
The Okavango Delta.
The Okavango is an inland delta that never reaches the sea, and the flood arrives in the dry season rather than the wet one.
Photo Ajeet Panesar / Unsplash
Camps are either water camps, dry-land camps, or something in between depending on the year's flood, and that determines the activities: mokoro and boating in the water, game drives and walking on the land. A good Delta itinerary usually combines both rather than choosing.
The concessions are private and enormous, which is what keeps vehicle numbers down. Moremi Game Reserve, on the eastern side, is the public part and the busiest.
How do you get to the Okavango Delta?
Through Maun, almost without exception. International travellers usually connect via Johannesburg or Cape Town to Maun, and from there light aircraft reach most Delta camps in well under an hour. Moremi Game Reserve can be reached by road from Maun, but the private concessions are fly-in, and the small planes carry soft bags only, with a weight limit that is usually around 20 kg a person.
How long should you spend in the Okavango Delta?
Trips tend to give the Delta four to seven nights, split between two camps: one where the water allows mokoro and boating, and one on drier ground for game drives. That split matters more than the total, because a single camp shows only one side of the Delta.
What is a mokoro?
A dugout canoe, these days usually made of fibreglass, poled by a guide standing at the stern through the shallow channels. It is silent and sits low in the water, so it is for reed frogs, water lilies, birds and the feeling of the place rather than for big game, and it runs only where the flood gives it enough depth.
What is the difference between Moremi and the Okavango Delta?
Moremi Game Reserve covers a large part of the eastern Delta and is the part open to self-drivers and public vehicles. Most of the rest is divided into private concessions leased to safari operators, where the number of camps is limited and guides can drive off-road, drive at night and walk. The whole Delta has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014, as the list's thousandth site.
What is there to see in the Okavango Delta?
Sample journeys that stop here
- Khwai and Mababe Safari →An eight-day mid-range Botswana safari from Maun, in two private concessions on the edge of the Okavango Delta. Three nights in the Khwai Concession, with game drives into Moremi and a mokoro on the river, then four in the Mababe Concession beside Chobe National Park, where a guided walk joins the drives.
- Khwai, the Delta and the Kalahari →A nine-day mid-range Botswana safari from Maun through three landscapes: the woodland and river of the Khwai Concession, the islands and lagoons of the Okavango Delta, and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where Naro San guides share tracking and foraging.
- Okavango, Khwai and Chobe →An eleven-day luxury Botswana safari from Maun to Kasane. A private concession in the Okavango Delta, where the camp drives off-road and at night; four nights in the Khwai Concession; then a lodge on the Chobe River, looking across to Namibia.
- Chobe, Okavango and Moremi →A nine-day luxury Botswana safari from Kasane to Maun. It opens on the Chobe River with game drives and a boat among the elephants, moves into the Okavango Delta by mokoro and motorboat, and ends in Moremi Game Reserve on Xakanaxa Lagoon.
What does the Okavango Delta pair well with?
- Chobe and the LinyantiChobe holds one of the largest elephant populations in Africa, concentrated along its river frontage in the dry months.
- The Kalahari and the salt pansThe Central Kalahari and the Makgadikgadi pans are the country's dry, spare, wide-horizon counterpoint to the Delta.
- Victoria Falls and Livingstone, ZambiaThe Zambian side of Victoria Falls gives the closest, wettest views, and Livingstone is the town that serves it.
- Victoria Falls, ZimbabweThe Zimbabwean side holds most of the panoramic frontage, and the town is the region's adventure capital.
Planning
Start planning your adventure