Desert miracle 

The rainwater from Angola arrives into the heart of the Kalahari Desert a the start of the long dry season, creating miraculous floodplains packed with wildlife. 

           Private areas 

Around 95% of the best safari areas in Okavango are comprised of vast private concessions, with extremely low visitor densities. 

          Superb camps  

These concessions are home to a remarkable collection of superb lodges and camps, many of which offer an amazing range of safari experiences. 

          Safari freedom    

In the private concessions, operators are able to maximise the safari experience by including off-road driving and walking safari, as well as motorboat and canoe safaris. 

          Easy access 

Johannesburg is one of the best-connected cities in Africa. From there it’s a short flight up to Maun in Botswana for onward hops into the safari areas. 

         Strong combos 

It is very easy to combine the Okavango Delta with other safari areas in Botswana, notably Linyanti Waterfront to the north and Makgadikgadi to the southeast. 

            3 to 5 nights 

For shorter trips, it is more than possible to fly into Johannesburg and connect out to the Okavango Delta for as few as 3 to 5 nights, something that we often do for guests who are visiting the region on business. 

           6 to 12 nights  

Most of our guests tend to deploy 6 to 12 nights on safari in Botswana. At the shorter end, we are talking about a combination of two camps, usually in Okavango Delta and Linyanti Waterfront. At the longer end, we tend to combine three or four camps, usually adding a contrasting desert area like Makgadikgadi or Central Kalahari. 

             13 to 28 nights 

For longer trips, most people will start to combine with other countries. The most common extension is Cape Town, the Cape Winelands and the Whale Coast, which are all great value. Botswana can easily be preceded by Victoria Falls and combined with further safari in Zambia, Zimbabwe or the Kruger area of South Africa. 

The cost of safari in the Okavango Delta

Safari in Okavango Delta ranges from relatively pricey to eye-watering expensive. During the Jul-Oct dry season it is the most expensive in Africa, whilst the Nov-Mar period can be genuinely great value. You can expect to spend USD 600 to 4200 per person per night.

We are more than happy to work across this range of prices. The only important thing is that we help you find the very best safari to suit your budget.

The two dominant price factors are the length of time that you spend on safari and the specific lodges that you choose to include in your trip. Deploying more time in town, rural and beach locations can bring the total cost down dramatically.

If you have a higher budget, we will help you determine which camps do actually deliver elevated levels of service and experience. We will also highlight other subtle ways in which your trip can be elevated to another level, including the use of whole camp bookings, private guides and vehicles, helicopter explorations of remote areas etc.

If you have a medium budget, the best ways to keep a lid on costs are to travel out of high season and to carefully choose lower cost lodges.  You can also reduce the number of core safari nights and deploy time in lower cost beach, town and rural locations. We will help you understand where to trim and where to splash in order to achieve the best overall experience.

If you have a lower budget, then talk to us about last minute booking options, which can deliver some extraordinary discounts. Failing that, we can always look at other fundamentally less pricey safari areas.

Victoria Falls 

A few days at the Victoria Falls can work really well at the front end of a Botswana safari, there’s some lovely lodges, the falls are impressive and there’s loads of other interesting activities in the area.   

Linyanti Waterfront 

Located to the north of Okavango, the Linyanti Waterfront is another fabulous safari area, renowned for big herds of elephants and buffaloes, plus prodigious predator action. 

Makgadikgadi 

Located to the southeast of Okavango, Makgadikgadi is a desert area of enormous salt pans, with quadbike expeditions, habituated meerkats, Bushman interaction and palaeontology and green season migration herds. 

The best safari lodges in Okavango

The Okavango Delta has around 75 safari lodges, almost all of which are wonderfully remote and high quality.

We are able to include any of these properties in your trip. We ones most like to recommend fall into two categories …

Firstly, there are the truly high-end lodges, which are in the very best locations and offer the highest levels of guiding, hospitality and consistency, suitable for demanding guests. Examples include Duba Plains Camp and Mombo Camp.

Secondly, there are the relatively good value camps, which are also in excellent locations and also take their guiding very seriously, but which typically offer lower levels of luxury and have the potential to be slightly less consistent in their delivery, suitable for more easy-going guests. A couple of real favourites are Splash Camp and Kweene Trails.

The properties that we generally prefer to avoid in Okavango are the camps which are either heavily over-priced or which offer safari activities which are too flaccid (which is surprisingly widespread). We also prefer not to include any of the lodges which are located in the busy public access areas.

You can always expect absolute honesty from us when describing the various lodges and camps. Our primary motivation is to figure out which ones will suit you the best.

Luxury trips

Our luxury trips to Botswana combine lodges which are in prime locations, where high levels of comfort and service are guaranteed. This does not necessarily mean infinity pools and spa facilities, but it does always mean that you will be hosted and guided by the very best people in the country. That is how to truly guarantee the quality of a safari.  

Adventure trips

In our adventure trips to Botswana, we use a much wider range of lodges, still in fabulous locations and offering authentic safari experiences, but often at considerably lower cost. More strenuous activities, like walking safari, are likely to feature more prominently. These cool, sometimes edgy lodges tend to be best suited to guests who are a little more outdoorsy and forgiving.   

When to go to the Okavango Delta

The safari areas of Okavango Delta are very seasonal. Extremely detailed knowledge of the ecosystems and wildlife movements around every single camp is needed to properly plan a great safari. When thinking about seasonality it is important to consider the five aspects of weather, wildlife movements, visitor traffic and prices.

Apr-Jun : Flood arrival season

The Apr-Jun period marks the transition from the hot wet summer to the cool dry winter and is generally considered to be a great time to visit.

During May-Jun temperatures can drop towards freezing during the night, but this has little adverse effect on safari, the days remain gorgeous and sunny. The low temperatures ensure that there are very few flying insects.
 
The long grasses of the preceding Green Season start to die back through April, making the tracking and viewing of wildlife easier. The inward migration of animals to the arriving floodwaters starts and wildlife densities increase in many areas through the period. By the end of May, the bush has usually transformed from green into its more characteristic yellow colour scheme, but there are still plenty of young animals around.
 
Many camps are priced around 30% lower than peak season and most camps tend not to be too full.

Jul-Sep : Dry season

The Jul-Sep period is the main dry season in Botswana and is generally considered to be the prime season to visit.

Through this period, temperatures climb from genuinely cold at night to very comfortable, with the days remaining lovely and sunny throughout, perfect weather for safari.

By this time, huge numbers of animals have migrated in from the dry hinterlands and are clustered around the flooded areas of the Okavango Delta. Wildlife viewing should be rich and varied, although you do still have to work for your sightings, even here in Botswana.

This is also the high season in terms of prices and visitor numbers, although the latter is little problem out in the private concessions.

Oct-Dec : Hot rainy season

The Oct-Dec period is the most challenging time to be on safari in Botswana.
 
The temperatures climb in advance of the rains, making for potentially uncomfortable nights in camps without air-conditioning (almost all of them). Once the rains properly break, temperatures should ease, but the timing of this event is unpredictable and can take place any time through this period. Even during rainy periods, the sunshine hours usually remain high.
 
Before the rains, during the height of the dry season, wildlife is gathered around the few remaining waterholes and sightings can be truly epic.
 
Once the rains break, the wildlife starts to disperse away from the permanent sources of water in the Okavango Delta, making wildlife viewing gradually less intense, but still relatively rich.
October tends to be priced as high season, but heading into November many camps are heavily discounted, jumping back up for the brief Dec-Jan vacation season.

Jan-Mar : Green season

The period Jan-Mar represents the main green season, which is an unusual but interesting time to visit.
 
Into January, the very high temperatures of the preceding period should be starting to ease. It is this period that threatens the most significant chance of more prolonged cloud and rain, although being the Kalahari Desert, the prevailing conditions remain relatively dry and sunny.
 
The bush looks beautiful at this time, unusually verdant, with lots of wildflowers and baby animals.
 
Although many of the migratory animals will have dispersed away from the main permanent water sources in Okavango Delta, those wetland areas still host a good deal of resident wildlife and sightings should remain sufficiently good to satisfy most people.
 
Many camps are heavily discounted during this period. Late March clearly represents the best value, being the closest to the upcoming Flood Season, but needs to be booked literally years in advance. The camps tend to be wonderfully quiet, except for the last 2-3 weeks.

Expert

Our safari experts are uncommonly knowledgeable and experienced

765,000

The number of superb safaris we have  so far created

Seamless

Arranging your trip should be almost as much fun as actually going on safari  

Value

Your trip should cost you no more than if you booked all the components directly

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Your trip will be perfectly tuned to meet your requirements

What our guests say

“We’ve used many different travel organizers and agents, but one truly stands like a giraffe, head and shoulders above all others.”

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“ATR are the experts in their field and I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

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The year that we started to build great safaris

           Price fluctuations 

During the Jun-Oct dry season, Okavango is one of the highest cost safari locations in Africa, but during the converse Nov-Mar green season it can be surprisingly affordable, with some camps being discounted 60-70%. 

           Safari seriousness 

Around three quarters of Okavango camps offer rather lame safari activities. If you want an intense experience, it’s really important to choose the camps that take their guiding seriously. 

           Traffic hotspots 

Over 95% of the best safari areas lie within fabulous private concessions. Make sure you avoid the public access areas, which are often overrun by overland and budget traffic. 

           Suicide season 

The weather in Okavango is usually fabulous, but the Oct-Nov late dry season can be uncomfortably hot and humid. These conditions can extend into Dec-Jan. Only a few camps have air-con. 

           Walking safari  

A few camps in Okavango offer significant walking safari, but if this is a major focus for you, then we will probably turn to specialist operations in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

           Rhinos  

Although there is a major reintroduction program underway, you are unlikely to encounter rhinos in Botswana, but we can include them by combining with locations in Victoria Falls, Namibia or South Africa.