Okavango Delta, Botswana

A river that never reaches the sea. Mokoro canoes through flooded channels and the most exclusive safari camps in Africa.

safariwildlifeluxuryecowater

Best time to visit

Month	High	Low	Rain	Season
Jan	31°	20°	166 mm
Feb	30°	20°	116 mm
Mar	30°	19°	87 mm
Apr	30°	17°	20 mm
May	28°	13°	2 mm
Jun	26°	10°	2 mm	prime
Jul	25°	9°	0 mm	prime
Aug	29°	12°	0 mm	prime
Sep	33°	16°	2 mm	prime
Oct	36°	20°	9 mm	prime
Nov	34°	21°	57 mm
Dec	32°	21°	114 mm

30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.

Serves travellers at Premium→Ultra-luxury level. Typically around $900 a day on the ground.

Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.

Stays here are all-inclusive and settled by card, so you carry almost no cash. Keep pula for tips and for anything in Maun.
money · editorial
Light aircraft impose strict luggage limits and insist on soft bags with no frame. This catches people out at Maun with no good options. Camps are unfenced and staff escort you to your tent after dark.
know before · editorial
The heavy rains around the start of the year flood the black cotton tracks, scatter the game and close some camps entirely. Note the counterintuitive bit: the delta floods at its highest in the dry middle of the year, because the water comes from Angola months earlier.
when not to go · editorial
Water camps in the permanent delta give you mokoro and boats; drier land camps on the fringes give you game drives. The two are different holidays and the usual answer is one of each. Maun is a transit town, not a stay.
where to stay · editorial
Nothing is self-driven once you are in. Camps move you by mokoro, motorboat and open 4WD on their own schedule, which is dawn and late afternoon. Self-drive is only realistic around the Moremi edges, and only with proper expedition kit.
getting around · editorial
Maun is the gateway. From there, camps are reached by light aircraft on a bush strip, typically twenty to forty minutes in the air. Kasane serves the Chobe side. There is no road to most of the delta.
getting there · editorial

Maun
The gateway town for the delta. The small aircraft leave from here.
Moremi, South Gate
The southern entrance to the Moremi reserve.
Third Bridge
The log bridge over the channel. You cross it slowly.
Xakanaxa Lagoon
Open water, hippo, and one of the largest concentrations of birds in the delta.

Eat seswaa, the shredded meat of Botswana
Eat pap and meat at the end of a day on the water
Simple food after too much sun.
Take your coffee while it is still dark, before the first animal sound
The delta wakes before you do.

Listen to the delta at 4am, before any engine
Spend an hour in a mokoro in silence
The canoe is pushed along with a pole. The silence is the point.
Listen to hippos at night from inside the tent
Too close to fall asleep straight away.
Fly over the delta in a small aircraft
Twenty minutes, and the whole pattern of the water appears.

Walk a multi-day safari with an armed guide
You sleep wherever you can. It is the hardest and the most honest way to see the delta.