Botswana Destinations
Botswana is a largely roadless country full of savannahs, wetlands, deserts and wide open spaces that cry out for exploration. It’s one of the few places in Africa where the wilderness areas have remained completely unspoiled and is an ideal destination for nature lovers.

Kasane
Kasane is a remote and forgettable small village, but it is an important strategic location as the meeting point for four countries: Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Kazungula, 6km to the east of Kasane, is the border post between Botswana and Zimbabwe, and the Victoria Falls are only 80km away. The nearby Kazungula ferry crosses the Zambezi River between Botswana and Zambia. The border with Namibia is 50km away on the other side of the northern tip of Chobe National Park.

Kasane lies on the banks of the Chobe River and although there’s not much in town, it is the location of Chobe National Park’s northern gate. Kasane offers a number of accommodation options in lodges and campsites. From these lodges, it’s possible to arrange a boat trip on the Chobe River to see some of Botswana’s substantial elephant herds come down to the water to drink in the late afternoon.

As there are no boundary fences between the park and the village, elephant are frequently seen wandering down the main street and crocs climb out of the river and bask on the lawns of the Kasane campsites....

Maun
Maun was once a dusty little frontier town where local people brought their cattle to trade. Today it is Botswana’s tourism capital and a great base for wilderness safaris...

Maun was once a dusty little frontier town where local people brought their cattle to trade. Today, thanks to the popularity of the Okavango Delta and Moremi Wildlife Reserve, it’s Botswana’s tourism capital and the springboard for safaris into the 15 000 sq km wilderness area.

Although the modern city of Gaborone in the extreme southeast is Botswana’s capital, very few travellers pass through that city en route to the national parks. You are more likely to arrive in Maun (for the delta) or Kasane on the northern border with Zimbabwe (for Chobe). Alternatively you can get to Chobe from Maun via the Moremi Wildlife Reserve, but this route is only suitable for 4x4 vehicles. Maun is the base-camp for a thriving tourism industry that markets everything from horseback safaris to mokoro tours in the delta. There are countless safari and air-charter operations whose signs and offices line the dusty streets. Only a few years ago it was little more than a dirt-road rural village. The exceptional growth of the tourism industry has turned Maun from a sleepy backwater into a boomtown.

The name Maun is derived from the San word 'maung', meaning ‘the place of short reeds’. The village began life in 1915 as the tribal capital of the Batswana people, and its reputation quickly grew as a rough and ready place of local cattle ranchers and professional hunters with a Wild West atmosphere. In 1920, Harry Riley built the first Riley’s Hotel, which was then nothing more than a small bar catering to the men who arrived from Francistown - a gruelling 35-hour journey by horse and cart. Today the hotel is still an important landmark in Maun. With the growth of the tourism industry and the completion of the tar road from Nata in the early 1990s, Maun developed rapidly along the wide Thamalakane River into Botswana’s third largest town. It’s lost much of its old frontier town character and is now home to over 30 000 people in an eclectic mix of modern buildings and native huts. There are shopping malls, banks, restaurants, a few hotels and some happening bars. Regular supplies of almost everything can be bought in Maun and the town services the various lodges in the delta, sending provisions in by truck or plane.

Maun has very few sights as such, and it’s not the most attractive of places: lots of concrete, very few trees, hot, white and bright. Though it still retains some of its rural atmosphere - you might see local tribesmen bring their cattle into town for sale, or the odd red lechwe grazing next to the donkeys, goats and cattle along the riverbanks - the real reason to be in Maun is to prepare for a trip into the delta.