Botswana is easy to backpack between towns, since paved highways, regular buses and lodge campsites link Gaborone, Francistown, Maun and Kasane, but its best wildlife areas need a guide or a fully equipped 4x4.
Buses leave the Gaborone bus rank throughout the day: Gaborone to Francistown takes 5 to 6 hours, Francistown to Maun 6 to 7 hours, and Nata to Kasane about 4 hours, each for roughly P100 to 200 (US$7 to 15). Camping at lodges in
Maun and
Kasane runs around P100 to 200 a night. The catch is the parks: the
Okavango Delta, Moremi and the Central Kalahari are unfenced and unpaved, so budget US$100 to 400 a day for mokoro trips or mobile safaris.
Ten to fourteen days covers Botswana’s north properly, while five days is enough for Maun, Moremi and one mokoro trip in the Okavango Delta.
With 10 days, link
Kasane (3 nights for Chobe),
Gweta (3 nights for the Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pan) and
Maun plus the Delta (3 nights). Two weeks or more lets you add Gaborone, Khama Rhino Sanctuary near Serowe and a two-night trip into the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Distances are long, with Kasane to Maun taking 8 to 10 hours by bus, so follow every long ride with an easy day, and give any park where you want to see predators at least two nights.
You can get around Botswana without a car between towns, but not inside the national parks, where you join game drives, mobile safaris or mokoro trips run by operators.
Intercity buses cover the main routes: Gaborone to Francistown in 5 to 6 hours, Francistown to Kasane in 6 to 7 hours via Nata, and Maun to Kasane in 8 to 10 hours with a change at Nata, mostly for P100 to 250 (US$7 to 18). From
Kasane, shared Chobe game drives and river cruises cost about US$35 to 60 each. From
Maun, mokoro trips and Moremi or Central Kalahari mobile safaris include the 4x4 transfer, so you never need to rent a vehicle.
The Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park are the two places in Botswana nobody should miss, with Moremi Game Reserve and the Makgadikgadi Pans close behind.
Use
Maun as the springboard for 1 or 2 nights by mokoro in the
Okavango Delta and 2 nights on a mobile safari in
Moremi. Give
Kasane 2 to 3 nights for morning game drives and an afternoon river cruise on the Chobe.
Gweta, about 3 hours east of Maun by bus, is the village for meerkats and dry-season salt-pan sleep-outs in the Makgadikgadi. With more time, the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve adds 2 nights of open desert and black-maned lions.
If time is short in Botswana, skip the south and the far west: Gaborone, Lobatse and Francistown work as transit points, and the remote desert parks eat days better spent in the north.
The
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and
Mabuasehube Game Reserve sit in the southwest, a full day’s drive from Gaborone, and need a self-sufficient 4x4.
Gcwihaba Caves and
Tsodilo Hills lie far northwest of Maun and add 2 to 3 days. The
Tuli Block has good elephant viewing among sandstone outcrops but sits out on the eastern border. On a 5 to 7 day trip, fly into Maun or Kasane and spend every day on the Delta, Moremi and Chobe.
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