Botswana

The Okavango Delta is not fed by local rain. Its water falls in the Angolan highlands between December and March, drains into the Cubango and Cuito rivers and takes months to work south. The pulse reaches the Panhandle around April, spreads through the Delta in May and June, and peaks in the lower Delta and Moremi in July and August, when the surrounding Kalahari is at its driest.

June to September is the classic window: water in the Delta, almost none anywhere else, and game concentrated on the floodplains and the Chobe and Linyanti river frontages. Mornings in June and July are cold, in single figures at dawn and close to freezing in a rooftop tent in the Kalahari. By September and October daytime temperatures sit between 38 and 42 °C and elephant numbers on the Chobe riverfront are at their peak.

From November the rains break and the picture inverts. The Delta shrinks and game disperses, while the Kalahari comes alive: zebra and springbok in thousands on Deception Valley, black-maned lion, cheetah hunting in the open. The Nxai Pan zebra migration runs from roughly December to March, at lower rates and with a fraction of the visitors. The costs are specific: some Delta camps close, malaria risk rises, and the black cotton soil across the Mababe Depression and the Nogatsaa route through Chobe becomes impassable rather than merely slow.

The tar network is short and good: the A1 spine, the A3 from Nata to Maun, and the road north to Kasane. Everything off it is sand.

Sand driving is a technique rather than a question of ground clearance. Drop tyre pressures to around 1.4 to 1.6 bar before you leave the tar, engage four-wheel drive before you need it, stay in the existing ruts, keep momentum without wheelspin, and never stop on an incline. The sand ridge running north from Mababe Gate towards Savuti is the longest and deepest stretch, and the most common place for self-drivers to need a tow.

Water crossings need checking on foot. The pole bridges around Third Bridge and the crossings between First and Second Bridge in Moremi change depth week to week as the flood moves through, and the Khwai crossing at North Gate varies from ankle-deep to bonnet-deep between years. If you cannot see the bottom and you are travelling alone, turn around. Crocodiles are present at the deeper Khwai and Boro crossings.

There is no fuel inside Moremi, Chobe, Savuti, Nxai Pan, Makgadikgadi or the Central Kalahari. Maun and Kasane are the reliable poles, with Nata, Gweta and Rakops covering the eastern and Kalahari approaches. Deep sand in low range with a fridge running roughly doubles your highway consumption, so carry 40 to 60 litres in jerry cans.

There are three local rules to know. At veterinary control gates you drive through disinfectant and hand over raw meat and dairy, so plan the cool box around it. Park gates close at sunset, and driving inside the parks after dark is prohibited and fined. And elephants have right of way: if a breeding herd is on the road, switch the engine off and wait.

Driving between camps is slow, campsites are booked to the night a year ahead, and there is no room to adjust once you are on the road. Fewer places, more nights. Ten nights makes a solid trip; fourteen to twenty covers a full Kalahari, Delta and Chobe traverse.

• 3 nightsMoremi Game Reserve

  The heart of the Delta and the best general game viewing in the country. Split three nights between Third Bridge, for the water crossings and lagoons, and Xakanaxa, for the heronry and the leopard density. Two nights feels short, because the drive in from Maun takes most of the first day.

• 2 nightsKhwai

  A community concession rather than a park, so there are no gate times, night drives are permitted and walking is possible with a guide. The river frontage at dusk is one of the most reliable places in Botswana for wild dog and leopard.

• 2 nightsSavuti

  The Savuti Channel has flowed and dried repeatedly over the last century, leaving dead camelthorns standing in dry grass. Known for large lion prides and for elephant bulls that strip the campsite trees.

• 2 nightsChobe Riverfront

  The highest elephant density in Africa. Base near Kasane or at Ihaha and spend one afternoon on a boat rather than in the vehicle. Also your resupply point: fuel, ATM, mechanic and supermarket.

• 3 nightsCentral Kalahari Game Reserve

  Green season only. From December to April, Deception Valley and Piper Pan hold grazing herds, black-maned lion and cheetah in open grassland. Distances inside the reserve are long and most campsites have no water and no ablutions, so we book this leg with two vehicles.

• 2 nightsNxai Pan & Makgadikgadi

  Nxai Pan holds the zebra migration from roughly December to March, and Baines' Baobabs are worth the detour in any season; the 36-kilometre access track from the A3 is deep sand. In Makgadikgadi the Boteti River frontage concentrates game in the dry months.

• 3 nightsLinyanti & Selinda

  Private concessions, so no self-drive, but also no other vehicles, plus night drives and walking. The dry-season elephant on the Linyanti frontage matches Chobe with a fraction of the traffic.

You need to be able to drive deep sand without bogging, air tyres down and up, change a wheel in soft ground, recover a stuck vehicle with a rope or traction boards, and read a water crossing. Carry five litres of drinking water per person per day plus a reserve, all your food, two spares, a compressor, tow rope, shovel, traction boards, a first-aid kit and a satellite communicator. Mobile coverage reaches Maun, Kasane and patchily Khwai, and nowhere else. Bring pula in cash for park fees.

Campsites are run by private concessionaires, reservations open roughly twelve months ahead, and the good sites in Moremi, Savuti and Third Bridge go within days for July to September. The route is therefore fixed to specific nights before you fly, so we build in one buffer night outside the parks. For a first trip we suggest either two vehicles travelling together, or a guide in a second vehicle for Savuti, the Khwai crossings and the Central Kalahari.