Botswana

Botswana is the land of Africa’s great inland delta. The Okavango River spreads into the Kalahari and, fed by summer rains far upstream, floods at the height of the dry season, turning the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, into a maze of channels, lagoons and islands. Guides pole guests through the reeds in a mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe, and explore by motorboat and on game drives. The country favours few guests and plenty of space: small camps on vast private concessions.

In the Linyanti, the river and its lagoons draw large elephant herds, while wild dogs and lions hunt the floodplains. On the edge of the Kalahari, the Makgadikgadi salt pans offer meerkats, a zebra migration in the green season and star-filled nights. Chobe National Park, with its riverfront near Kasane, has one of Africa’s densest elephant populations, and Victoria Falls is a short hop away.

In the dry winter, roughly May to October, the Delta’s flood usually peaks and game gathers at the water; the green season, about November to April, brings migrant birds, newborns and the zebras of the pans. Botswana suits second safaris and connoisseurs, honeymooners, photographers and families at camps that welcome children, and pairs well with Cape Town and the Winelands, Victoria Falls, Namibia, Mauritius or the Seychelles.