Botswana

With the rolling flatlands and dominated by famous locations like the Okavango Delta, the Kalahari Desert, and Chobe National Park, it’s no wonder that Botswana is a popular destination. With the diverse areas of habitat—delta, desert, grasslands, savanna—and a long history of conversation, there are so many different types of wildlife to see including antelopes, springbok, elan, cheetah, hyenas, the blue wildebeest featured in our logo, over 350 species of birds, and the largest African elephant population in the world, concentrated around Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. It is best to visit in winter (May to August) when animals are most active and in the hot springtime months of September and October when the animals concentrate around water holes and rivers.

People have lived in Botswana for around 2 million years as hunter/gatherers. Cave paintings here have been dated to about 73,000 years old. Chobe River in the north provides a boundary with Namibia. Chobe meets Zambezi in Kazungula. With just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the least densely populated countries in the world (236 out of 254 countries), with 10% of the population in the capital, Gaborone. The surface water is rare in Botswana, covering less than 5% of the land surface. Their coat of arms is inscribed with the word “Pula” which literally means “rain” but is also used as “good luck” and is the name of their currency, demonstrating the reliance and importance of rain in daily Botswanan life. The different tribes have different ways of greeting each other, including a three-way handshake, or you can just say “dumelang”.