Botswana
Okavango Delta (Maun)
The largest inland delta on earth: a river that floods the Kalahari instead of reaching the sea, and fills it with big game.
The Okavango is a river that never reaches the sea. Every year it spills out of the Angolan highlands into the Kalahari and floods a vast fan of channels, lagoons and palm islands, drawing elephant, buffalo, lion and wild dog onto ground that was dry sand months earlier. Most of it is reached by light aircraft from Maun, the dusty frontier town on its southern edge, and much of it is seen from a mokoro, the shallow dugout poled through the reeds. Moremi Game Reserve, on the eastern side, is the part you can drive.
Suggested stay
4–7 days
Language
English, Setswana
Currency
BWP
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Okavango Delta (Maun)
The mokoro you sit at water level in a dugout while a poler pushes from behind, eye to eye with lilies and reed frogs, and there is no engine noise at all.
Moremi floodplain, mopane forest and lagoon in a single drive, and one of the surest places left in Africa to find African wild dog.
Flying in light aircraft cross low over the water, and the branching channels, islands and elephant paths only make sense from up there.
Water on sand the flood arrives in the dry season, so the game crowds in as the channels fill, an inversion you find almost nowhere else.
Best time to visit
Feb-Aug
27-33° days
19.986° S, 23.422° E
UTC+2 · Africa/Gaborone
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Weather & when to go to Okavango Delta (Maun)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Feb-Aug
Watch for Sep-Nov extreme heat risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Okavango Delta (Maun)
No bad season here, just two different trips. Around the middle of the year the flood is high, boats and mekoro reach furthest and game presses in on the water. Later in the year the channels are low and the heat builds hard before the rains break, camps are quieter and the game is scattered. Malaria and mosquitoes are a year-round consideration.
Top things to do in Okavango Delta (Maun)
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Mokoro - poled through the papyrus channels
nature wildlife scenic safari 👍 PopularThe delta's own transport: a shallow dugout, once hollowed from ebony or sausage tree and now usually fibreglass, poled standing from the stern. You sit inches above the water on hippo trails through the reeds, level with painted frogs and lily pads. Trips run from an hour at sunset to multi-day camping expeditions with island walks at either end.
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Moremi Game Reserve - Xakanaxa lagoons and Third Bridge
nature wildlife safari 👍 PopularThe eastern third of the delta and the only part with public roads and campsites, running from the mopane woodland at South Gate to the lagoons at Xakanaxa and the log causeway at Third Bridge. Lion, leopard, elephant and huge buffalo herds, and a genuine stronghold for wild dog.
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Scenic flight over the delta - low-level in a light aircraft
scenic nature wildlife 👍 PopularCamp transfers double as the sightseeing, small planes crossing at a few hundred metres over herds of elephant and buffalo, the branching channels and the round ponds hippo keep open. Helicopter flights with the doors off go lower and slower, and are how photographers work the floodplain.
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Chief's Island - the big-game core of the delta
nature wildlife safariThe largest island in the delta, a long spine of dry ground inside Moremi that holds game through the flood when the surrounding country is underwater. Its concessions are the classic fly-in camps, and predator densities on the island are as high as anywhere in Botswana.
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Khwai - night drives and wild dogs on the reserve boundary
nature wildlife safari off beaten path ⭐ Highly recommendedA community-run concession on Moremi's northern edge, along the Khwai River. Because it sits outside the national reserve, guides can drive after dark and go off-road, so this is where you get spotlit leopard, honey badger and genet, and the best odds of following a wild dog pack on a hunt.
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Walking safari on a delta island - tracking on foot
nature wildlife adventure safari ⭐ Highly recommendedOut at first light with an armed guide, reading tracks and dung and working slowly upwind towards elephant or a herd of red lechwe. You cover very little ground and notice everything: termite mounds building islands, trees, birds, the sound of your own footsteps. Only run in the private concessions, not in the reserve.
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Boat safari on the permanent waterways
nature wildlife scenicAluminium boats work the deep channels the mokoro cannot reach, cutting through papyrus walls into open lagoons. The way to find hippo pods, crocodile on the sandbanks and skimmers working the surface at dusk, and the main activity at water camps when the flood is high.
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The Panhandle - birding and tigerfish above Shakawe
nature wildlife off beaten pathWhere the river runs in a straight fault-bound corridor before it fans out, with permanent deep water, papyrus banks and riverside lodges reached by road. The delta's birding heartland, with Pel's fishing owl, African skimmer and carmine bee-eater colonies, and the water most anglers come to for catch-and-release tigerfish.
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Horseback safari across the floodplains
adventure nature wildlifeThe delta is one of the great riding destinations, cantering through shallow water beside zebra and lechwe, and getting far closer to plains game than a vehicle ever does. Camps take experienced riders only, since the escape plan when an elephant objects is to ride away fast.
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Maun - the Thamalakane riverfront and Nhabe Museum
culture arts historyThe town everyone passes through and few look at: sandy streets, cattle on the verges, a bush-pilot airport that is one of the busiest in Africa, and lodges strung along the Thamalakane where the delta's last water stops. The small Nhabe Museum covers Ngamiland's peoples, art and natural history.
Best areas to stay in Okavango Delta (Maun)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Maun
Gateway base $Dusty frontier town of bush pilots
Explore hotels in Maun →
Inner delta concessions
The full delta $$$Fly-in camps on private water
Explore hotels in Inner delta concessions →
Moremi Game Reserve
Self-drivers and campers $$Public campsites in wild bush
Explore hotels in Moremi Game Reserve →
Khwai
Wildlife without fences $$Unfenced community land, no boundaries
Explore hotels in Khwai →
The Panhandle (Shakawe and Seronga)
Birders and anglers $Riverside lodges on permanent water
Explore hotels in The Panhandle (Shakawe and Seronga) →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Okavango Delta (Maun)
Getting to & around Okavango Delta (Maun)
Getting there
Fly into Maun, then a light-aircraft hop to a camp airstrip or a long 4x4 drive into Moremi.
Flight
Maun Airport (MUB)
The airport sits at the edge of town, minutes from the lodges on the Thamalakane, and any camp or lodge you have booked sends a vehicle. Most people do not linger: you cross from the terminal to the charter desks beside it and fly on into the delta the same day, under a strict soft-bag weight limit.
Light aircraft
Delta airstrips
Scheduled charters from Maun reach the camp airstrips in roughly 15-40 min, and are the only way into most concessions
Drive
Tar runs east to Nata and Francistown across the Makgadikgadi, and north to Shakawe and the Namibian border; Kasane is a long day away
Coach
Maun bus rank
Long-distance buses and shared combis link Maun with Francistown, Gaborone and Kasane, slowly and with frequent stops
Getting around
Charter flight
Camp-to-camp hops in a light aircraft, booked as part of your itinerary, with soft bags and a weight limit
TBC
Mokoro
The dugout and its poler, used to move between islands and through the shallows where nothing else fits
TBC
Motorboat
The permanent channels and the Panhandle are worked by aluminium boats, the mainstay when water is high
TBC
Game-drive vehicle
Open 4x4 with a guide, usually one drive at first light and another through the afternoon into dusk
TBC
Self-drive 4x4
Moremi and Khwai are deep sand and water crossings; high clearance, recovery gear and a travelling companion vehicle
TBC
Taxi and combi (Maun)
Shared white combis run fixed routes around town, and taxis wait at the airport and the shopping malls
TBC
Day trips from Okavango Delta (Maun)
Moremi Game Reserve
Full dayReserve game drive
The one part of the delta you can drive into, and close enough to Maun for a long day out with an operator. Mopane woodland, floodplain and lagoon in one loop, with elephant, buffalo, lion and a fair chance of leopard or wild dog.
Getting there
car | tour
About 2 hr by 4x4 north-east to South Gate, on tar then sand track
Boro mokoro station
Half dayPoling trip
The community trust stations on the delta's southern edge are how most independent travellers get into a mokoro. A poler takes you out through the reeds for a few hours, usually with a walk on an island, and the money stays in the villages that own the concession.
Getting there
car | ferry | tour
About 45 min by road and motorboat south-west of Maun to the poling station
Boteti River and Makgadikgadi Pans
Full daySalt pans and zebra
The Boteti is the trickle of Okavango water that escapes south-east, and in the green months it draws one of Africa's largest zebra migrations to drink. Behind it the grass gives way to the white glare of the pans, flat to the horizon in every direction.
Getting there
car | tour
About 2 hr east by road to the Khumaga side of the park
Nxai Pan and Baines' Baobabs
1-2 daysDesert pan and baobabs
A grassy fossil pan north of the highway, best after the rains when springbok, zebra and their predators gather on it. Nearby stands the island of ancient baobabs Thomas Baines painted in 1862, still recognisably the same trees in the same arrangement.
Getting there
car | tour
About 3 hr east by road, the last stretch on deep sand track
Tsodilo Hills
2 daysRock art hills
Four quartzite hills standing alone above the Kalahari, holding thousands of rock paintings and revered by the Ju/'hoansi and Hambukushu as a place of spirits. A long way from Maun and usually done as an overnight from the Panhandle rather than a day trip.
Getting there
car | tour
Roughly 6 hr by road north-west towards Shakawe, then a sand track
A little history of Okavango Delta (Maun)
The Okavango rises as the Cubango in the Angolan highlands and runs south-east through the Caprivi Strip into Botswana, where the Kalahari simply absorbs it. Fault lines hold it in shape: the river spreads across a shallow trough of the same rift system that splits East Africa, and the Thamalakane fault at Maun stops the last of it like a wall. Almost all the water leaves again as vapour off the reeds. The flood is slow, four or five months from the Angolan rains to the far channels, so the delta is deepest in the dry season, which is the whole reason it holds the game it does.
People lived off it long before anyone visited it. River Bushmen fished and hunted the channels, the Bayei came down from the Zambezi floodplains in the eighteenth century with the dugout canoe and the fish trap, and the Hambukushu brought their crops. The Batawana settled Ngamiland and made Maun their capital in 1915. Europeans arrived with Livingstone at Lake Ngami in 1849, and for a century afterwards this was country for ivory, hides and big-game hunting, with Maun a hard-drinking outpost of hunters and pilots. Botswana chose conservation instead, and the Batawana proclaimed Moremi themselves.
The Bayei move down from the Zambezi floodplains, bringing the mokoro and basket fish traps; the Hambukushu follow with farming.
The Batawana break away from the Bangwato and settle Ngamiland, taking control of the delta's southern approaches.
David Livingstone, William Cotton Oswell and Mungo Murray reach Lake Ngami, the first Europeans to see the delta's outflow.
Maun is founded on the Thamalakane as the Batawana capital, and grows into the region's trading and hunting hub.
Moremi Game Reserve is proclaimed by the Batawana on their own tribal land, the first reserve in southern Africa created by a community.
Botswana becomes independent, and Ngamiland becomes a district of the new republic.
The tar road reaches Maun, ending its isolation, as Botswana settles on a low-volume, high-value model for delta tourism.
The delta is listed under the Ramsar convention as a wetland of international importance, one of the largest in the world.
The Okavango Delta is inscribed as UNESCO's one-thousandth World Heritage site.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Limited
Power
Type M
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+267
Extreme heat risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Botswana eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Okavango Delta (Maun)
▸ When is the best time to visit the Okavango Delta?
The drier half of the year is the classic safari window. The flood peaks around mid-year, so boats and mekoro reach furthest and game concentrates on shrinking dry ground, and that game viewing holds through the very hot spell before the rains. Rain falls roughly November to March, when the country is green, the antelope calve and the birding is at its best.
▸ How do you actually get into the delta?
Three ways. Most people fly by light aircraft from Maun to a camp airstrip. Self-drivers and mobile safaris take a 4x4 into Moremi and Khwai on the eastern side. Independent travellers can reach a community poling station near Maun and go in by mokoro. There is no public transport inside the delta at all.
▸ Is the Okavango Delta expensive?
Yes, it is among the most expensive safari destinations in Africa, by policy: Botswana runs low-volume, high-value tourism and the concessions are private, with small camps reached by charter. The cheaper routes in are camping in Moremi or Khwai on a self-drive or mobile safari, or a community-run mokoro trip out of Maun.
▸ What is a mokoro?
A shallow dugout canoe, poled standing from the stern with a long pole. Traditionally hollowed from ebony or sausage tree, most are fibreglass now to spare the hardwoods. It carries two passengers sitting at water level, which is the whole point of it, and it only works where the pole can still reach the bottom.
▸ Will you see the Big Five?
Four of them readily. Elephant and buffalo are everywhere, and Moremi and the northern concessions are among the best places in Africa for lion and leopard. Rhino are the exception, present only in small reintroduced and closely guarded numbers, so do not plan around them. The delta's real speciality is African wild dog.
▸ Is malaria a risk in the delta?
Yes. This is a malaria area, with the risk highest during and just after the rains. Get medical advice on prophylaxis before travelling, cover up and use repellent at dusk, and sleep under the net your camp provides. Tsetse fly are around in some woodland, and camps supply repellent for them too.
▸ Can you self-drive the Okavango Delta?
Into Moremi and Khwai, yes, and it is one of Africa's great self-drive trips, but it means deep sand, water crossings and no fuel or rescue once you are inside. You need a high-clearance 4x4, recovery gear, and all your own water and food. Private concessions are closed to self-drivers entirely.