Chobe National Park is one of Africa’s greatest game parks. It is the third largest park in Botswana and covers an area of 10,698 square kilometres. Chobe has become Botswana’s most popular safari destinations, it has great game viewing, notably large herds of elephant, it is easily accessible from Kasane and offers great value for money.
As well as its famous huge herds of elephant, Chobe is home to large numbers of buffalo and Burchell’s zebra and high densities of predators such as lion, leopard, spotted hyena and cheetah. The park is also notable for the presence of more unusual antelope species like roan and sable, puku, tsessebe, eland, red lechwe, waterbuck, and the rare Chobe bushbuck. Other more popular species such as giraffe, kudu, warthog, wildebeest and impala also abound.
Chobe Safari LodgeThe Chobe Riverfront is a remarkable wildlife area due to the permanent water source of the Chobe River. Ease of accessibility from Kasane and close proximity to Victoria Falls and Livingstone has created a busy tourism environment with larger hotels and lodges in this area than in the rest of Botswana. Most wildlife activity occurs along the banks of the river – especially during the drier winter months, the dry season (May – October), when animals congregate at the river to quench their thirst. The spectacle of all the animals coming to drink and frolic at the water’s edge is impressive to behold.
In the rainy season (November – April) the game spreads throughout the greater area of Chobe National Park due to the increased availability of surface water from seasonal pans. This process assists the vegetation on the river banks to recover from the massive herds that are attracted to the river front in the dry months. The rainy season beginning in November/December brings beautiful wild flowers, exquisite scenery and mass birthing of young animals. Birding enthusiasts will find the riverfront a fantastic destination at this time with more than 400 species of birds, including migratory species and numerous birds of prey.
Offering a more exclusive experience than most of the camps around the Chobe Riverfront but still within the national park boundaries, this famous western corner of Chobe is one of Botswana’s best-known wildlife areas. Savuti covers almost 5,000 km2 and includes the Savuti Marsh, Savute Channel, the Mababe Depression and Magwikhwe Sand Ridge. Savuti is synonymous with lions and hyenas from the days before the channel resumed flowing, but the area also hosts an excellent diversity of other predators and plains game species. Savute’s pans, waterholes and channel (which stopped flowing in 1984 but resumed in 2008) support an exceptionally large population of bull elephants. Game-viewing conditions are generally better in Savute in the dry season (May to October) when grasses are shorter, vegetation is more thinned-out and animals are restricted to available water sources. When dry, the Savute landscape provides for excellent photography with skeletal trees set against the deep blue sky. The area is particularly photogenic when the plains game begins to move towards the woodlands at dusk and clouds of dust are stirred up against the red sunsets.
After the rains arrive in late November, the area is transformed almost overnight into lush grassland with zebras, wildebeest and buffalo appearing in their thousands. While it is still most definitely a reasonable time to visit and the arrival of all these animals brings a time of great feast for the predators seeing these interactions can be difficult due to thicker bush and the restrictions imparted by the National Park.
Chobe National Park is definitely a great year round destination with plenty to offer at different times of the year. When is best for each person to travel is, as with other destinations, dependant on what it is you are looking to travel for, for example, during the wet season (December-March) brings some fantastic birding and also some incredible special offers. The peak of the dry season (September-October) is the best time to see large herds of Elephants but is also the hottest and most expensive time of year. Deciding what is best for you is slightly more complicated than this but this is where we are able to help, with impartial advice on what, when, where and how.
Chobe is so easy to reach which is one of the reasons it is Botswana’s most visited national park. It can be accessed by road from Kasane, Livingstone (Zambian) and Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), this gets you to the famous Chobe Waterfront. To access the more remote western areas it is also possible to fly.
On the riverfront one of the big attractions is the boating safaris which allow a different perspective and the ability to get very close to the wildlife that comes to drink, apart from this game drives are the order of the day.
Top Chobe camps
Chobe Under Canvas
Chobe, Botswana
Perfect for an authentic mobile tented safari experience operated by one of the best safari operators in Africa.
Muchenje
Chobe, Botswana
Perfect for a small and personal lodge offering fantastic value in an easily accessed area of Chobe just away from the busiest part of the park.
Camp Linyanti
Chobe, Botswana
Perfect for a great value Chobe experience in a small camp that links well with sister camps in the Delta to make a good mid level circuit.
Chobe Elephant Camp
Chobe, Botswana
Perfect for a small, personal experience at a value often reserved for much larger lodges, a great start to a Botswana itinerary or a few days add on from Kasane.
Top Botswana itineraries
Botswana Lodge and Mobile
Classic Safari
Duration: 10 nights
Guide price: £3,950