Compare Classic Botswana Explorer by Rothschild Safaris vs Botswana Africa Adventure Safari Trip by Walking Connection
Compare details and see what other travelers are saying.
| Trip |
5 | Excellent
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5 | Excellent
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| Duration | 10 days | 9 days |
| Price From | $ 5,841 | Check price |
| Price Per Day | $ 584 | Check price |
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| Trip Style | Private guided tour | Self-guided tour |
| Lodging Level | Luxury | Standard |
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| Flights & Transport | Internal airfare and ground transport included | Ground transport included |
| Activities |
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N/A |
| Meals Included |
9 Breakfasts, 9 Lunches and 9 Dinners |
9 Breakfasts, 8 Lunches and 8 Dinners |
| Description |
While on safari in Botswana, the story always comes back to water. On this classic Botswana safari, you’ll begin by exploring the Savute Channel. The Savuti Channel has a fascinating history of flooding and drying up independently of good rainy seasons and flood levels elsewhere – a mystery that has intrigued geologists and other researchers for many years. Here, the annual Zebra migration is closely followed by many Lion prides. Then, move on to the Okavango Delta, home to the greatest concentration of big game in the country. Explore the delta by vehicle or by boat during the day, and sleep under the roof of your luxury tent (or opt for the “sleep under the stars”option!) by night. End your Botswana adventure across the delta at Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge. Here, enjoy a front row seat to the most exceptional wildlife sightings (both day and night) combined with some of the most innovative architectural design in Southern Africa. |
If you have been to Africa once, you will understand…Africa gets in your soul. You long to go back. Images of the tawny landscape stretching deep into the hazy distance draw you in. You crave the anticipation of what gift from nature a new day will bring. Elephants wallowing in the mud around a reed-fringed waterhole as a warning cry echoes across the water. A herd of waterbuck crash through the shallows at the sight of a wandering lion. You have to go back… |
Day 1: Chobe National Park Game Drive
Welcome to Africa! Transfer from Maun to Chobe National Park, famous for massive herds of elephant and all around spectacular wildlife. Stretching from the Linyanti River all the way to Savute Marsh, the winding waterways of the Savute Channel have pumped life into the western section of Chobe National Park for many thousands of generations. After lunch, set out on an early evening game drive.
Day 2: Game Drive And Zebra Migration
Today the Botswana safari continues! After an early cup of coffee, set out with a guide to explore Chobe National Park by game drive in an open 4×4 safari vehicle. This morning, visit the Savute Marsh where you can fully appreciate the massive Savute Channel and learn about the ecological mystery around the water levels here. Return to camp for lunch and a restful afternoon head out for an afternoon game drive, catching the Zebra Migration if the timing is right. Savute boasts the second-largest summer Zebra migration in Africa; its timing is determined by the rains, but usually occurs between November and December and again between February and April, when the Zebras move from the rivers in the north in search of the rain-ripe grasslands and full waterholes in the southwest of the park. Return to camp for dinner and overnight.
Day 3: San Rock Art
Today, visit some of the most well preserved ancient San Rock Art in Africa. Drive to Gubatsa Hills, a small hilly outcrop which forms a prominent landmark in the otherwise flat landscape, where you guide will educate you on the history and meaning of these paintings. Dinner and overnight in camp.
Day 4: Moremi Wildlife Reserve Game Drive
After breakfast, transfer to the Okavango Delta and the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. Arrive at Baines Camp in time for lunch, and enjoy the private concession area that plays host to a breathtaking mosaic of open floodplains, waterways, marshlands, dry acacia and mopane woodland, riverine forest and open grasslands, the area is famed for its incredible numbers and diversity of wildlife, in particular predators. After lunch, set out for an extended game drive, ending with sundowners before heading back to camp for dinner and overnight.
DAY 5: Bush Breakfast And Leopard Tracking
This morning, set out on a morning game drive around camp. End the morning adventure with a hot breakfast served out in the bush. After a restful afternoon in camp, set out with a specialist guide to track leopard. Learn more about these elusive creatures as you follow their tracks. Return to camp for dinner and overnight.
Day 6: Botswana Safari Elephant Experience
Today get ready for an amazing experience; a walk in the bush with semi-habituated elephants! Jabu and Morula are elephants that were orphaned nearby and adopted by the camp owners. The elephants will ‘take’ you on a long walk while they forage in the area. Watch them look for food, strip leaves from branches with their long trunks and take showers in the lagoons of the delta. After walking with and observing these magnificent creatures, enjoy a picnic lunch in their company before heading back to camp.
Day 7: Okavango Delta Day And Night Game Drive
This morning, fly to Sandibe Safari Lodge, where your guide will pick you up at the airstrip and on the way to camp enjoy your first game drive in Botswana. Situated on a beautiful island in a private concession in the northern reaches of the Okavango Delta, enjoy great game viewing right from camp. After high tea, head out for an early evening game drive, stopping for sundowner cocktails. Take a moment to appreciate the pristine wilderness as the sky turns fire orange before nightfall. Return to camp in the dark, using a spotlight to see nocturnal creatures as they emerge for the evening.
DAY 8: Okavango Delta Game Drive, Mokoro Safari And Bush Walk
This morning, head out for an early morning game drive. After lunch and an afternoon rest, hop into a traditional wooden canoe, called a Mokoro, for a Botswana safari game experience on the water. As you glide silently through the waterways, watch elephant drink, birds fishing for their dinner and perhaps even catch a glimpse of a predator on the banks. After high tea, experience the thrill of walking in the bush. Accompanied by an armed guide, walk slowly from camp, learning more about tracking the wildlife and big game that surrounds camp. Return to camp for dinner and overnight.
Day 9: Scenic Helicopter Flight Over The Delta
This morning, enjoy a scenic helicopter flight over the Delta’s patchwork landscape of islands, plains and lagoons. With many of the Delta’s most remote areas not reachable in any other way, an aerial perspective is the ideal way to gaze onto the vast Delta and its meandering labyrinth of crystal-clear channels. The incredible diversity and amount of wildlife encountered in the Delta becomes clear from above. Soar above pods of hippo sleeping the day away in the depths of a lagoon, watch a herd of elephants slowly amble along open grasslands or marvel at the fleet moves of red lechwe antelope as they leap through a fringe of papyrus reeds in the shallows. Return to camp for a relaxing last evening in the bush.
DAY 10: Safari In Botswana – Travel Home
Today you will enjoy a last morning game drive, and then you will then transfer to the local airstrip for your shared charter flight to Maun. On arrival in Maun, you will connect with your flight to Johannesburg, where you will complete your Botswana safari with us and connect with your flight home.
Day 1-3: Moremi Game Reserve
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Overnight 1 of 3 Nights: Safari Lodging Of Distinction: Camp Xakanaxa
Trip starts in Maun, Botswana where you will be met and assisted to your light aircraft flight to our first location in the Moremi Game Reserve.
The Moremi Game Reserve is situated in the eastern part of the Okavango Delta, on the south-western border of the Chobe National Park. Covering almost one-third of the Delta it is considered one of the finest reserves in Africa.
The ancient riverine forests, open savannah, serpentine channels and seasonal floodplains that surround this area will make for a varied habitat of exceptional fauna and flora.
You will have the opportunity for both land and water game-viewing experiences, in open 4×4 safari vehicles or powerboats. The diverse habitat ensures prolific sightings of Elephant, Buffalo, Hyena, Giraffe, Hippo, Wildebeest, Kudu, Lechwe, Lion and Leopard, among many others.
The prime location of Camp Xakanaxa (pronounced Ka-ka-na-ka) on the banks of the Khwai River on the Xakanaxa Lagoon, in the heart of the Moremi Game Reserve, makes it one of the very few safari camps that offer guests an authentic, year-round Okavango Delta land and water safari experience.
With only twelve spacious all-canvas, classic Meru-style luxury safari tents, with en-suite showers, hand basins, and toilet facilities, it is one of the few camps in Botswana which still offers the essence of a classic tented camp.
Situated on the fringe of the lagoon, every tent has a private viewing deck with comfortable loungers.
Day 4-5: Okavango Delta
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Overnight 1 of 2 Nights: Safari Lodging of Distinction: Camp Okavango
An early morning game drive, return for breakfast transfer by light aircraft to Camp Okavango for two days of fully escorted game viewing by mokoro (traditional canoe), motor boat or tracking wildlife on foot on a nearby island. Fishing is also an available optional activity.
Botswana’s magnificent Okavango Delta situated within the heart of the newly declared World Heritage site is the world’s largest inland delta and is a maze of deep lagoons, large lakes, and hidden, meandering channels.
During the annual flood season, the Delta covers a vast area of over 16 000 km² before shrinking to less than 9 000 km² in the dry season. Trapped in a basin of parched Kalahari Desert sand, the freshwater oasis attracts wildlife that depends on the permanent waters of this unique environment.
This unique and exclusive African safari camp is situated on the remote Nxaragha Island. This hidden treasure, in the heart of the permanent Okavango Delta, assures our guests of an unparalleled water wilderness experience.
Day 6-8: Chobe National Park
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Overnight 1 of 3 Nights: Savute Safari Lodge
Stretching from the Linyanti River all the way to Savute Marsh, the winding waterways of the Savute Channel have pumped life into the western section of Chobe National Park for many thousands of generations. However, this fickle and unpredictable channel, which has a fascinating history of flooding and drying up, independently of good rainy seasons and flood levels elsewhere, has mystified local inhabitants, geologists and others for many years.
The Unexplained
When David Livingstone, the first European to visit the area, saw the Savute Channel in 1851 it was flowing. Thirty years later it had disappeared and the Savute Marsh had dried out, remaining this way for almost 80 years. It flowed again from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, when it again receded, hence its reputation as ‘the river that flows in both directions’.
In 2009, after another extended hiatus, the channel began flowing again and by January 2010 had spilled into the Savute Marsh for the first time in three decades, but for how long – no one knows …
There are only eleven private thatched chalets built of local timber. The chalets, which have been elegantly furnished in calm neutral tones to blend with the natural environment, feature expansive private viewing decks, a combined bedroom and lounge area and en-suite facilities.
Day 9: Departure
Meals: Breakfast
A final early morning of game viewing activity. Breakfast and return flight to Maun or Kasane. (Kasane is preferred for those traveling on to Victoria Falls.)
