Botswana: reviews from our travellers

"We only did Chobe Elephant Camp with Expert Africa.

Our total trip was: Arrive at Joburg 2 nights, 4 nights Rovos rail Pretoria - Victoria Falls. Then 2 nights at Victoria Falls hotel, 3 nights Chobe, and then back to Joburg. Would definitely recommend our trip. However we did feel Victoria Falls town is a bit touristic and expensive, so a one-day trip visiting the park and doing a heli ride would be enough.

We really enjoyed the service of Expert Africa. Tracy Lederer was very helpful, providing us with valuable advice, always responding quickly and helping us with last minute arrangements. We heard the evening before we left that we would be picked up at 8:30 am, making a morning drive impossible (but which was included). Tracy made sure the pick-up was delayed, organizing this late in the evening, and we had a great morning safari drive before heading off. We really appreciated it!

Would definitely recommend booking your trip to Africa with a travel agent, and in particular Expert Africa. It can be quite difficult and overwhelming to book your own trip and organize things locally, so having some help was much appreciated to make the vacation even more relaxing :)" Read full review: 5 nights in Africa; 3 on a Botswana safari

"This was my first time using Expert Africa and I would highly recommend them.

Anton responded to my enquiries extremely quickly, and provided great advice on which camps he thought I would (and would not) like.

I have already arranged another trip with the company next year, and will doubtless be using them for further safaris." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 8 on a Botswana safari

"Had an amazing time.

Very well organized trip." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 6 on a Namibia trip

"All of the arrangements worked well. I'll comment on each lodge later on but would like to say how impressed we were with MackAir, not only from the plane/info side but how helpful there were as well.

As you may have gathered, I managed to fall off my bike just four days before going. Nothing broken but a lot of bruising on my right side which, even with the max paracetamol and ibuprofen made things a bit painful. Ok when walking on the flat but turning / balancing / going upstairs required a lot of thought to be less painful. The MackAir people as well as the lodges were all very helpful and I was able to do everything ....

As you probably know, Botswana had the 'best' rains in Jan/Feb for 19 years. This was good for them but did mean that the migration of the animals from the interior to more permanent sources of water was much delayed. Chobe for instance was far greener than when we went 12 years ago even though we were there three weeks earlier in 2013. At a guess, we thought that the drying out of the waterholes away from the rivers was perhaps 6+ weeks later than on our previous visit. Curiously, the flood into the delta seemed later than before.

As a result of the changes in weather patterns, we saw far far less animals in Chobe than we were expecting and the density of animals everywhere was lower than expected. On our previous visit when we stayed at Muchenje for 3 nights and Camp Okavango for three nights we almost certainly saw a larger total number of animals than we did in 14 nights this time.

We did manage to see the wild dogs briefly in Savuti but nowhere else. At Splash we heard that the pack was in the adjacent concession at the moment. Our other target, which was cheetah we saw in three places, all lounging under trees/ bushes which we'd seen before. We'd have liked to see them walking or better, hunting.

New species that we did see: Aardwolf - very good sightings at Lagoon, Roan Antelope in Savuti (just one), Brown hyena (Savuti) several birds including a great sighting of a Martial Eagle, Barred Owlet, Pel's Fishing Owl and two bee eaters. After several trips to Africa, we have seen a lot, so less scope for a huge number of new sightings.

We saw a number of new behaviours including quite a clashing of tusks as a Matriarch forced an adolescent male elephant out of the troop; two big hippos fighting wildly, all the hippo 'chattering' at Lagoon; a leopard going up a vertical tree with it's kill (baboon) after recovering it from a hyena who had pinched it..and some new grooming behaviour in baboons. One mock charge from elephants ...

Participants in vehicles: It has been 10 years since we shared game vehicles with others. We don't have a problem sharing but none of the lodges made any attempt to match the group with previous experience of safaris or nature watching in general. Vehicles seemed to be mainly filled with people who arrived at a certain time. At two of the camps we were with people who had been to Africa which was great before but two in particular had people who were notionally interested but spent too much time talking amongst themselves and not listening to the guide. Curious given the cost and how far they had travelled but irritating all the same. Appreciate we could have requested private vehicles at a considerable cost though several camps didn't have the capacity for this. We actually like going around with like minded people, so it was a shame that camps couldn't sort that.

Overall, we found all the booking and arrangements that you dealt with to be great. It turned out that we should have gone maybe two months later - as you may remember the timing was for my birthday last year and when 2024 wasn't possible I should have gone for a later date in 2025.

The trip itself we would rate as on the better side of good rather than fantastic for the reason mentioned above." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 14 on a Botswana safari

"The most amazing trip.

Our fifth trip with Expert Africa and once again we received very sound advice which led to a great selection of camps, each with a different feel.

The attention to detail in organising the arrangements and documention is outstanding.

We cannot thank Tracy Lederer enough for her help again." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"The trip worked exactly as we had hoped. In putting together the trip, Anton took into account everything we had discussed such that no detail was overlooked and everything ran smoothly." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"Our 2 week trip to the Caprivi Strip, Chobe and the Delta was absolutely wonderful and we saw so much wildlife. Some we had expected to see, some we had hoped to see and some we didn't think we would see but did!

All arrangements were excellent, all guides excellent, and all of the staff in all of the lodges friendly and very welcoming. The standard of accommodation was very good and we felt very well looked after.

We well may do a third visit to another part of Namibia in a few years time!

I would just like to say that I have already recommended Tracy to a friend!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 5 on a Namibia trip

"Our trip was top notch! I would not have changed a thing. We could not have asked for more. Lucy at Expert Africa helped set up a trip of a lifetime!!!" Read full review: 7 nights in Africa; 7 on a Botswana safari

"Our Botswana wildlife trip was fantastic. The safaris and sightings were excellent.

The Guides at Lagoon (Ike) and Rra Dinare (Rasta) were great. We did a Walking Safari at Lagoon and a Mokoro ar Rra Dinare. These were also super enjoyable. The night safaris were well arranged with adequate flexibility.

Rra Dinare has a few areas to improve upon, which I have mentioned in the section on Rra Dinare." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 5 on a Botswana safari

"The trip was wonderful and epic, Maruska planned it just like we wanted it to be.

Any mishaps was not on her." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zambia safari