Safari!

July 9, 2013 10:50 AM

Halp! I'm on the hook to plan a safari in Botswana. The options are overwhelming.

Basic details:

- 4-8 days
- want to visit Chobe, Okavango and Vic Falls if possible
- not too expensive?
- coming from Cape Town
- probably no camping
- includes my 60-something parents, so probably no overlanding either

So, if anyone has any experience either with a tour company or with self-driving, please let me know! I'm dying here trying to find an affordable option.

posted by mrfuga0 to Travel & Transportation around Botswana (2 answers total)

I went to Botswana for my honeymoon - it was amazing, but the way they manage the better wildlife concessions makes it decidedly not a budget location especially the Okavango, Linyati and Moremi. Maybe Dasein has more on the ground experience than I do, but my impression and the impression of my friends who went to Bots is that it is much more of a lodge driven experience than say East Africa or South Africa proper. You do two game drives a day and come back to the lodge for lunch. What separates the better operators is the quality of their guides and the number of people they put in a land rover. We had three couples max, but it was never more than two.

Expect to pay at a minimum a few hundred USD/day per person. The nicer camps are closer to $1000.

I believe Chobe can be done on a much smaller budget.


Vic Falls is in Zambia and you can fly there from Jo'burg and stay in a hotel, the hotel can arrange your transit to the falls.
posted by JPD at 12:14 PM on July 9, 2013

i have heard that some safari companies in africa are quite unethical so do be careful in choosing one to make sure they are reputable. sorry i don't have more info than that.
posted by wildflower at 9:03 PM on July 9, 2013