Destination Information
The Chobe National Park, The Kalahari Desert, Moremi Game Reserve and The Okavango Delta
Botswana: a place where the world renowned Okavango Delta meets the Kalahari thirstland. A destination of myriad beauties, rich cultures, wonderful scenery, and most importantly a very peaceful and stable country.
Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name upon independence in 1966. Four decades of uninterrupted civilian leadership, progressive social policies, and significant capital investment have created one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Mineral extraction, principally diamond mining, dominates economic activity, though tourism is a growing sector due to the country's conservation practices and extensive nature preserves.
The Government of Botswana's conservation policies and eco-tourism strategies ensure that Botswana’s tourism is sustainable for its inhabitants and future generations of tourists while contributing meaningfully to the national economy.
This also ensures that you can keep coming back to the unspoilt pristine environments, but keep a look out for new exciting discoveries and developments as we expand and diversify our tourism product offer further into new awesome and less known geographic locations.
Botswana offers the traveler a choice of accommodation options from top class hotels, luxury lodges and safari camps, to budget guesthouses and camping grounds. The main wildlife areas have a choice of private lodges, safari camps, and public camping sites.
When to go: Wildlife viewing is usually at its best during the dry season - in winter and Springtime (May to October) , when the wildlife are concentrated near rivers, pools and waterholes. The chances of spotting lions are better just after sunrise then at other times. In summer, most of the game tends to lie up during the heat of the day, so the recommended times to set out on drives are the early mornings and late afternoons.
November and December - the calving months - are an excellent time to witness nature's own timetable of regeneration. The rainy season, from January to March, sees the migration of large numbers of game into the summer grazing areas, while the Okavango Delta comes alive with sounds of hundreds of bird species - see a Bird Checklist.
In March and April thousands of zebras and other animals migrate towards the Savuti area of Chobe National Park.
The Kruger National Park Destination Information:
The world-renowned Kruger National Park in South Africa's North East offers a wildlife experience that ranks with the best in Africa. The Kruger National Park itself is some 20 000 square kilometres in extent, and is also now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park - which includes reserve areas in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe. On the Western border of The Kruger National Park (mostly within the Hazyview to Phalaborwa stretch), there are a number of private reserves, such as the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, Timbavati, Thornybush, Manyeleti and Balule - which are collectively known as the Greater Kruger Park (some 23 000 square kilometres in total) - thus forming a unique combination of public and private lands. This huge area offers an extraordinary selection of habitat, experiences and accommodation.
This new conservation entity, created in the early 1990's, contains no internal fencing (apart from small amounts used to isolate a few camps). This has opened up a vast stretch of wild land to the free movement of wildlife throughout what is now, in effect, a single conservation area. This situation is good for both wildlife and tourists: wildlife has access to more area and resources for their seasonal movements, tourists are offered a wider range of eco-tourism facilities.
The Kruger National Park itself has been in existence since 1926, effectively, in its present form. It is virtually unrivalled in species diversity (both animal and plant), and is a world leader in advanced environmental management techniques and policies. Recent figures indicate that there are some 147 species of mammal, 507 species of bird, and in excess of 1950 plant species in the Kruger National Park.
