Botswana Tourist Attractions

Mashatu Game Reserve lies within the Northern Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana's far eastern corner, where the Limpopo and Shashe rivers meet and the country borders South Africa and Zimbabwe. It's a striking landscape of sandstone ridges, riverine forest, baobabs and the nyala berry trees that give Mashatu its name, home to big elephant herds, lion, leopard and cheetah.

Moremi Game Reserve covers the eastern side of the Okavango Delta, including Chief's Island, and is named after Chief Moremi III of the BaTawana. Here permanent lagoons and seasonal floodplains meet mopane woodland and dry-land savannah, so game drives can be paired with boat trips where water allows. Lion, leopard, wild dog, elephant and superb birdlife make it a Botswana classic.

The Makgadikgadi Pans form one of the largest salt flats in the world: the remains of an ancient lake, now a network of pans led by Sua and Ntwetwe. Kubu Island, a rocky outcrop crowned with baobabs and protected as a national monument, rises from Sua Pan, while zebra and wildebeest migrate between the Boteti River and Ntwetwe Pan.

The Okavango Delta is one of the world's largest inland deltas, where the Okavango River spreads across the Kalahari in a maze of channels, lagoons, islands and floodplains. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014, it's explored by mokoro, boat, on foot and by vehicle, with elephant, lion, hippo, red lechwe and, with luck, African wild dog.

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park joins Botswana's Gemsbok National Park with South Africa's Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in roughly 38,000 km² of the southern Kalahari, about three-quarters of it in Botswana. Red dunes, grey camel thorn and the dry beds of the Nossob and Auob rivers frame gemsbok, springbok, blue wildebeest, red hartebeest, lion and a superb array of raptors.

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a vast, remote wilderness in central Botswana: open grass plains, fossil river valleys such as Deception Valley, salt pans and scrub-covered dunes. Gemsbok, springbok, red hartebeest and giraffe share it with Kalahari lions, cheetah, leopard and brown hyena. Remote and wonderfully wild, it rewards travellers who want space, silence and enormous skies.

Chobe National Park in Botswana's north is famous for its elephants and covers four distinct areas: the Chobe riverfront near Kasane, the Savuti Marsh, the Linyanti Marsh and the dry Nogatsaa hinterland. Boat cruises on the Chobe River bring you close to elephant, buffalo, hippo and crocodile, and Victoria Falls is an easy add-on from Kasane.