What activities can you do on safari in Botswana?

We would recommend having a private vehicle and guide for a family safari. This gives you freedom to decide the agenda for each safari drive. It also allows you to develop a relationship with your guide. You might want to try and find a particular animal, or stay a little longer at a waterhole while you capture the perfect animal portrait on camera. A vehicle is the best way to see the greatest numbers of animals.

As the sun dips to the horizon in a blaze of colour, your guide will pick a favourite spot to stop for a sundowner. Darkness falls quickly and your tracker will rig a spotlight before you set off again. After sunset it’s cooler so you’ll layer up. As you head slowly back to camp, the spotlight scans and sweeps from side to side seeking nocturnal creatures. A pair of eyes could be a hunting leopard or an eagle owl. You’ll pass the ghostly forms of elephant at rest and maybe a hippo trundling along in search of fresh grasses.

Mokoro canoes hollowed out of ebony trunks are the traditional way people get around the Okavango Delta. Today they are made of fibreglass, but the experience is no less magical. You settle in and your guide stands behind, punting you along reed lined channels with a rhythmic plop and glide. It’s a great way to relax and experience the Delta. Your children will love spotting brilliantly coloured frogs as you glide past giant water lilies towards a heronry of ibis or egrets.

As soon as you get out of your vehicle and walk, you become a part of your surroundings. Age old instincts kick in and put your senses on alert. Reach out and touch a medicinal plant. Crouch down and examine a leopard track. Stealthily approach a herd of zebra from downwind. Listen absorbed as your guide explains the workings of a six foot termite mound. Climb up and feel the heat coming from the “chimney” as a million tiny creatures work far below.

We work with specialist horseback safari partners in the Okavango Delta. If your family are experienced riders, we can arrange a multi-day horseback safari in this wonderland of sparkling lagoons and fertile grasslands. The guides know their reserve intimately and enable you to approach animals which are unconcerned by the profile of the horses. At Macatoo Camp, we can arrange day rides for the proficient while non-riders explore the reserve on walks and drives.

Quad-bikes with soft wide tyres are the ideal way to get about the Makgadikgadi Pans and are great fun too! Land Rover tracks would be imprinted for decades on the pristine salt-encrusted surface of the pans. Your family can set off across the lunar landscape in search of meerkats, brown hyena and ostrich. Pause for a sundowner as the flaming orb sets and drink in the utter silence and surreal beauty.