Botswana

Botswana’s most alluring safari destination, the Okavango Delta is a 5,800-square-mile wetland wilderness dense with elephants, buffaloes, hippos and birds. Dugout trips through the central delta are truly thrilling, while game drives in Moremi Game Reserve offer the opportunity to tick the Big Five.

Attracting more than 100,000 elephants in the dry season, Chobe National Park is a great all-round safari destination whose main focal point is the Chobe River, a magnificent tropical waterway that can be explored by boat or along an extensive game drive circuit.

Ecologically, Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari, a vast tract of semi-arid savanna that still supports a substantial amount of wildlife. Much of this desert wilderness is protected within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (the world’s largest such entity at 20,000+ square miles) and a pair of national parks protecting the white-crusted expenses of Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pans.

Ranked among the world’s ten most sparsely populated countries, Botswana is a largely pristine wilderness destination that incorporates some of the best parks and reserves anywhere in Africa. Paradoxically, while the country is dominated by the sandy soils and open horizons of the semi-arid Kalahari Desert, its two most popular attractions – the wondrous Okavango Delta and Chobe River – are very much aquatic. Botswana adheres to a policy of high-cost, low-impact ecotourism, which means it tends to be less family oriented and budget friendly than most of its neighbours, but for those seeking a truly exclusive safari experience, it is hard to beat.