Botswana Safari Guide: Okavango Delta & Chobe & Northern Kalahari

This new, thoroughly updated sixth edition of Bradt’s Botswana Safari Guide remains the only full-blown, standalone guide to one of Africa’s most popular and rewarding safari destinations. This is the sole guide to focus on Botswana’s key safari locations: the Okavango Delta, Chobe National Park and the Northern Kalahari.

Moreover, with improved air access from the US, via South Africa, Botswana has never been easier to visit. The country’s wilderness is pristine, a virtue underpinned by governmental commitment to sustainable tourism. The Okavango Delta’s permanent waters attract year-round wildlife, now including all the ’big five’ rhinos have been successfully re-introduced. Outside the Delta, this English-speaking country offers tremendous variety in landscapes, from the arid Kalahari to lush forests. Riverine areas harbour spectacular herds of elephants and buffalo, and mighty predator populations. Dusty savannahs attract hardier game like oryx and springbok. On Makgadikgadi’s great salt pans, zebra gather in huge congregations after rain. Birdwatching is brilliant throughout. Then there’s Botswana’s rich history, from the Tsodilo Hills’ ancient rock paintings to Stone Age arrowheads on the Makgadikgadi Pans.

Bradt’s Botswana Safari Guide offers detailed descriptions of many lodges, from traditional tented camps to those offering five-star luxury and top-class cuisine, plus detail on what animals occur where, enabling you to select the optimum approach. With this book’s comprehensive GPS co-ordinates and detailed maps, independent travellers can drive themselves around. But perhaps you prefer bespoke mobile safaris with a private guide? For something different, explore rivers on gentle motorboat cruises, including on multi-day trips, or get closer to the water in a traditional mokoro (dug-out canoe), with a poler escorting you along shallow waterways. Or seek out a specialist walking camp for the excitement of bush walks - when meerkats might even pose atop your head for a great lookout. And why not use this book’s advice to book-end trips by visiting Livingstone (Zambia) and the Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)?

Chris McIntyre (expertafrica.com) went to Africa in 1987, after reading Physics at Queen’s College, Oxford. He taught with VSO in Zimbabwe for almost three years and travelled extensively before writing his first guidebook (Bradt’s guide to Namibia and Botswana) in 1990. He has since written all Bradt’s guides to Namibia - and co-authors (with his wife, Susie) Bradt’s guides to Botswana, Zanzibar and Zambia, and (with Philip Briggs) Bradt’s guides to Tanzania. Alongside keeping these guidebooks up to date, Chris is managing director of Expert Africa. This specialist tour operator organises high-quality trips for individual travellers throughout Africa, offering a wide range of trips to Botswana. McIntyre maintains a keen interest in development and conservation, acting as advisor to various NGOs. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, McIntyre lives in Surrey with his wife and co-author Susie and their two children; together they regularly travel to Africa to update guidebooks.

Susie McIntyre had an adventurous childhood in Zambia and Saudi Arabia, camping in the wilderness under the Milky Way and bouncing around in Land Rovers across large swathes of southern Africa. She has since spent decades promoting responsible global travel, both as a PR and marketing consultant, and more recently as travel writer and journalist, co-authoring Bradt guides to Botswana, Zanzibar and Zambia. She is passionate about Africa: its people, wildlife and diversity. From off-grid adventures to cutting-edge conservation, community development to family travel, Susie is dedicated to thorough research. Whilst focussed on ensuring that Africa’s complexities are accurately represented, she is both candid and enthusiastic about travel on the continent. When not roaming around African savannahs, Susie lives in the British countryside with her husband and co-author, Chris, and their well-travelled children.