Botswana

Entry is genuinely simple and much mis-sold. Tourists from the main Western markets are visa-free for 90 days, there is no mandatory ETA for them (Botswana’s e-Visa is only for nationalities that need a visa), and the ~US$30 Tourism Development Levy is not currently charged — it has been announced and withdrawn repeatedly since 2017 and never actually implemented.

The practical takeaway: don’t pre-pay a “Botswana ETA or levy” on a lookalike site — you don’t need one. Both could be reintroduced on short notice, so re-check the official status close to departure, but as of 2026 a valid passport (six months, blank pages) and your onward ticket are all you need.

This is one of the more scammed destinations for fake “travel authorisation” sites: searching “Botswana entry requirements” surfaces commercial portals selling a “Botswana ETA” or “tourism levy” that visa-free Western tourists simply do not need. The official position (confirmed on the UK FCDO entry page) is no ETA and no entry fee — so if a site asks you to pay before you fly, it isn’t the government.

Botswana sells space and silence: you fly camp to camp, days pinned to dawn and dusk game drives, and glide through the Okavango Delta’s reed channels in a mokoro. The dry season (May–October) is peak, and uniquely the Okavango flood peaks within it (June–September) — because the summer rains that feed it fall far upstream in Angola and take four to five months to filter down. The result is the best of both at once: high water for canoeing, and wildlife concentrating at the receding pools.

The green season (November–April) is the counterpoint — cheaper and beautiful, with dramatic skies, newborn animals and the year’s best birding, but hotter, wetter, and with some camps closed or harder to reach as the water drops. For a classic first safari, aim at the June–September window and book early.

• you want mokoro trips and the densest gameSkipthe green low-water months for a Delta-focused tripGoJune–September, at peak flood and peak wildlife
• you’re travelling on a tighter budgetSkipthe premium dry-season peak ratesGothe green season (Nov–Apr) — cheaper, lush, superb birding, if wetter
• you’re told to pay for a “Botswana ETA or levy”Skipany third-party site charging an entry feeGonothing — there is no mandatory ETA or levy for visa-free tourists

Getting around a Botswana safari means light-aircraft transfers between the Delta and concession camps — short, scenic hops with strict soft-bag luggage limits (around 15–20kg, no hard cases) — radiating from Maun (the Okavango hub) and Kasane (for Chobe). That fly-in rhythm is part of what the premium price buys: minimal road time, maximum wilderness.

Self-drive 4x4 camping through Chobe and Moremi is possible for the experienced and self-sufficient — but it’s remote, with no fuel, services or recovery, and the public campsites must be reserved six to twelve months in advance. For most visitors, the all-inclusive fly-in camp is the trip.

Pack for the bush planes. Inter-camp transfers from Maun (the Delta) and Kasane (Chobe) are light aircraft with strict soft-bag-only limits — around 15–20 kg including hand luggage, and no hard cases — so bring a squashable duffel, not a wheeled suitcase, and travel light. The limit is enforced, not a suggestion; if you’re connecting off a long-haul flight with a big case, arrange to store the excess in Maun rather than discover the problem at the airstrip.

The signature is the Okavango Delta — mokoro channels, water-fringed game and fly-in camps — at its best around the June–September flood, with Moremi Game Reserve occupying its wildlife-rich east. North, the Chobe delivers some of the largest elephant herds on earth along its river, with the wild-dog country of Linyanti and the lion-and-elephant drama of Savuti nearby. South and central, the Central Kalahari offers desert-adapted wildlife and vast emptiness; the Makgadikgadi and Nxai salt pans add a surreal, horizonless landscape (with a major zebra migration, meerkats and Baines’ Baobabs); and far to the north-west the Tsodilo Hills hold thousands of ancient San rock paintings.

The wildlife is the whole point, and Botswana’s is world-class. The ~130,000 elephants (see the figure) are the headline, concentrated along the Chobe riverfront in the dry months, but the Delta and Moremi also deliver lion, leopard, buffalo, hippo, giraffe and the endangered African wild dog, which the Linyanti is famous for. The water-based game-viewing — drifting silent in a mokoro past elephants and lechwe, or a boat safari on the Chobe — is what sets Botswana apart from the vehicle-bound savanna parks elsewhere.

Because the model keeps beds deliberately few, sightings aren’t swarmed by vehicles the way they can be in busier parks — a big part of the premium. Park fees (DWNP) are high but usually bundled into the all-inclusive camp rate, and the best camps sell out six to twelve months ahead for the July–September peak, so book early.

Two realities sit side by side. In the camps, meals are international lodge-style — generous, high-quality and able to cater to most diets — because that’s the premium product. The traditional Tswana table, met in Maun or a village, is hearty and starch-based: the national dish seswaa (salted, slow-boiled, pounded beef or goat), bogobe or pap porridge, morogo greens, and the protein-rich mopane worms. The social centrepiece is the braai (barbecue), and the national drink is simply the respect for water that gives the currency its name.

Botswana is quietly one of the continent’s success stories (see the figure): independent since 1966, a stable multiparty democracy, and prosperous by regional standards on the back of carefully managed diamond wealth. English is the official language and Setswana the national language, spoken by almost everyone; the Tswana (Batswana) are the majority, and the San/Basarwa are the indigenous people of the Kalahari. Culture runs on cattle (long the measure of wealth), on village-and-cattle-post life, and on botho — the Tswana equivalent of ubuntu, one of the nation’s five guiding principles. It’s a reserved, courteous, famously safe-feeling country.

The currency is the pula (the word means “rain”); cards work at camps and in towns, and US dollars are commonly used for tips — reckon on roughly US$10–20 per guest per day for a guide, plus a pooled amount for camp staff and a little for mokoro polers. Botswana is one of Africa’s most stable and peaceful countries, though crime has risen in the towns (Gaborone, Francistown, Maun), which is why the US rates it Level 2 for crime while the UK places no restriction on travel — on safari you’re in one of the safest settings anywhere.

On health: malaria is a northern concern — the Okavango, Chobe and Ngamiland, highest in and after the wet season (a notable spike followed the heavy 2025 rains) — so take prophylaxis for those areas; the Kalahari and the dry mid-winter carry lower risk. A yellow-fever certificate is needed only if you arrive from an endemic country, not for direct travel from the UK, US or Europe.