My Trip to Botswana | Safari in Okavango Delta, Chobe National Park

Hello from Botswana. I've made it to Botswana and I'm ready for the safari of a lifetime. Botswana sits in the center of Southern Africa and it wasn't really on my radar until a couple years ago when I visited Namibia and South Africa. I made videos for both of those trips. I'll link them down below if you haven't seen them yet. While I was in Namibia and South Africa, I asked my safari guides, where is the best place in Africa for a safari? And both of them without hesitation said Botswana. So I knew I had to get here and I'm so excited to have finally made it. I'm going to be spending about 10 days traveling through the country and there's so much exciting stuff planned. My first stop here in Botswana is Makarikari Pans National Park. I'm staying at Larue Latau Lodge, which is perched on the Boteti River, which borders the park. This lodge has 12 chalets overlooking the river and my jaw dropped when I saw the view from my balcony. The wildlife is literally at my feet. This area is especially known for zebra migration and there are so many zebras in the water drinking. There are elephants in the water splashing themselves to stay cool. This lodge also has a hide, which in photography is a place where you can get closer to the animals, but you're obscured from them, but you can still take photos. And then there are also morning and afternoon game drives into the national park to look for wildlife. Makarikari Pans National Park isn't just a wildlife destination. It also has some of the world's largest salt pans, covering an area of over 16,000 square kilometers. And recent studies have suggested that modern homo sapiens may have first evolved in this region around 200,000 years ago, back when it was a wetland. A really cool experience this lodge offers is a sleep out under the stars on the Makarikari Salt Pans. This afternoon I got in a helicopter and flew out here. It was so scenic. It was about 30 minutes and we've arrived at one of the world's largest salt flats and this is where I'm sleeping tonight. So this is my bed. Inside there's a duvet and pillows, so it should be very cozy. The lodge has a camp set up out here, complete with everything you would need. A chef that cooks meals, chairs to sit and watch the sunset, lanterns, as well as a bathroom that has one of those foot pedal flush toilets like you see in RVs. So it's actually really comfortable for a night of camping and because the earth is so flat here, the sunset and sunrise on the horizon is really amazing to watch. Well this is one of the most unique experiences I've ever had. I can't remember the last time I slept under like open night sky, like not in a tent but just open under the stars. And I was skeptical about how I was going to sleep because it gets really cold here at night, but they gave me a hot water bottle to put in the bed that made it really toasty warm and the fresh air on my face felt so good. Such a cool experience. I've made it to Camp Kakanaka, which is in the heart of the Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta. This is a beautiful luxury tented camp. It's like glamping to the max. You get that open air immersive feel of a tent, but you also get a king-size bed and an ensuite bathroom and wi-fi. And the Okavango Delta is considered one of the most magnificent places in the world. National Geographic has called the Okavango Delta one of the most pristine unspoiled oases in all of Africa. It floods seasonally from May to September, creating rich vegetation that draws abundant wildlife in an incredible setting for game viewing. It really is like sitting in an oasis full of animals. And this is where I had one of my favorite sightings of the trip. Three lionesses with eight cubs between them. They'd recently taken down a buffalo and when lions have a meal, they will not leave it. They will sit there for days until it's completely eaten. And they're unfazed by safari vehicles because they don't perceive them as predator or prey. They're actually completely uninterested in them. So my guide and I visited these cubs several times over the course of a few days, always in this same spot, sitting with them for a couple hours at a time. And it was such a treat to just sit and watch them. So often on safari, when you get an exciting viewing like cubs, it's relatively brief because animals are often on the go. So to have hours to sit and take photos and listen to their noisy little growls was so special. I also saw African wild dogs for the first time here, alternatively known as painted wolves. This is one of Africa's most endangered and skilled predators. And contrary to what it looks like here, these animals are remarkably good hunters with around an 80% success rate. And to put that into perspective, lions average a 30% success rate when hunting. So typically on safari, when you're staying at a camp or a lodge where there are wild animals in the area, you're not allowed to leave your room at night. A guide will escort you to your room after dinner. When it's dark, they will come pick you up for breakfast. If you're getting up before sunrise, because the animals come into camp at night. And I went out on my morning game drive and my guide asked if I heard the leopard around my tent last night. Apparently a leopard came into camp and walked all over the place. There were tracks everywhere and they were especially around my tent. If you do want to come do a trip like this, I've partnered with Safari Frank on this itinerary. They're travel specialists who tailor make safaris all over the African continent for any budget, any duration. They're actually who I booked my trip to Namibia through a couple of years ago, which was phenomenal. I still get messages every single day about that trip and itinerary. And we've collaborated on this trip. So there's a page that I will link down below that will have the exact itinerary I'm doing here. If you want to come do this, if you want to kind of come do this, but swap out a couple of things or make it shorter or longer, or if you want to do something completely different in a different country, safaris are entirely customizable and they will build something incredible. I live for the daily schedule on safari. Lodges typically offer a morning and an afternoon game viewing activity inclusive with your stay. So you're usually up and out first thing around sunrise because sunrise and sunset are when animals are most active. So you bundle up in the morning, eat a quick breakfast at the lodge and head out. And the guides are incredible. They can pick out fresh tracks in the road from overnight. They know exactly which animal it was, how long ago it was there, and determine where they are headed. So you spend the morning searching for animals. You usually stop somewhere in there for a little morning coffee, tea, snack break, then head back to the lodge in the late morning to relax, refresh, have some lunch. Then in the late afternoon, you head back out to do the same thing again until sunset. And everything is optional. So if you prefer to relax at the lodge instead, that's fine too. After my time at the Moremi Game Reserve, I headed back to the airstrip and after waiting for some local traffic to clear, I hopped back on a plane and flew across the Okavango Delta. One of the coolest parts of this trip was the flight scene. Hopping around this region in a little plane gives you incredible views and also makes transferring between places really enjoyable compared to long bumpy car transfers. My next stop was Namasiri Island Lodge. This lodge is on a private island in the tranquil waters of the Okavango Panhandle. So you can only access it by boat and they greet you upon arrival with a song. The activities here are more focused on boat experiences and relaxation, although you do still see some river wildlife. The water is like glass. I went out for a sunset boat ride and it was like gliding on a mirror. And they also offer traditional Makoro experiences where you sit in a boat like a canoe and a polar pushes the boat through shallow waters. Here you can also take a day tour to the Cedillo Hills UNESCO World Heritage Site to see ancient rock art. I did a scenic helicopter flight out to the hills at sunrise. All of my helicopter flights here in Botswana were with Helicopter Horizons. They fly all over the country so you can likely book a flight with them anywhere you're staying. And I did a hike through the Louvre of the Desert. This is one of the largest concentrations of rock art in the world, believed to date back up to 20,000 years ago. After Namasiri, I flew to my final stop in Botswana, Chobe National Park, which is known for having some of the largest elephant herds on the planet. Here I got to do both game drives in the park and boat cruises down the river. The boat cruises are a must because the riverside game viewing is incredible. There are an estimated 120,000 elephants in Chobe National Park and they all come down to the river to drink, so the viewing opportunities are endless. And from a photography perspective, it was really neat to be out on the water shooting back toward land for a change. It opens up all new compositions. I also saw lots of animals on the game drives and I think my favorite viewing in Chobe was when we came across a group of elephants having a mud bath. This is one of the most entertaining things I've ever photographed because typically elephants have a majestic, serious presence. So it was so fun to see them rolling around in the mud, looking ridiculous, trunks and ears flying everywhere. This little baby caught in the middle of it all trying to use its face to climb out of the chaos. There was also one rubbing his butt on this tree. And while this seems frivolous, it's actually a very intelligent behavior. The elephants intentionally cover themselves in mud, then add a layer of dry dirt to stick to it and the combination creates their version of sunscreen. I also saw a good number of lions here in Chobe, which was a nice surprise because cats can be really elusive. I've had safari experiences where we couldn't find a single cat anywhere, but we saw lions multiple times, once even on the outskirts of the lodge, which is another reason you definitely don't want to be wandering around by yourself after dark here. The lodge I stayed at is Chobe Game Lodge, which is the only lodge inside of the park and is actually where Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Burton honeymooned in 1975. Now, this was a much larger operation than anywhere else I had stayed so far in Botswana. It felt more like a resort. There were a lot more guests. My room had air conditioning, which was nice. And the dining was incredible. I mean, look at the detail of decoration on this table I had one night. Well, this is it for my time in Botswana. This trip has been so great and so varied from the salt pans to the Okavango Delta to the river here. If you are looking to make a trip to Botswana, I highly recommend visiting during winter or the dry season. So like July, August, September, that's when the Okavango Delta floods. And now I'm going to hop across the border to Zambia. So stay tuned for that. Thanks again to Safari Frank for building such an awesome itinerary for this trip. I will have it linked down below and I will see you in the next one. Bye.