Things to Do in Botswana (2026)

Botswana · BW

Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Imagine spotting a white rhino grazing in the bush just ten minutes from the capital city of a country. That is Mokolodi Nature Reserve, a 30-square-kilometre pocket of Botswana bushveld that has been quietly rebuilding the nation's rhino population since 1994. Tucked south of Gaborone on the main road toward Lobatse, this non-profit reserve trades the vast empty horizons of the Okavango Delta for something more intimate: a guided walk close enough to hear a giraffe chew, a bumpy game drive that puts you nose-to-nose with waterbuck and zebra, and a sunset viewed from a chalet overlooking a waterhole where animals come to drink. Every visit here is a small act of conservation. The income from game drives, rhino tracking, chalets and bush braais funds an education centre that hosts more than 9,000 schoolchildren each year and supports a veterinary clinic for injured wildlife. You are not just a tourist; you are underwriting the next generation of Botswana's conservationists. And compared to the major safari circuits, the costs here are refreshingly low.

National park

Botswana · BW

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a vast, roadless wilderness in the heart of Botswana, so immense that nothing quite prepares you for the scale of it. At 52,800 square kilometres—larger than Denmark, nearly a tenth of the country—it is the largest game reserve in southern Africa and the second-largest in the world. Waist-high golden grasses roll to the horizon, broken only by dwarfed acacias and the dazzling white flats of salt pans meeting a soft blue-white sky. This is not the crowded safari circuit of Moremi or Chobe; it is an open, austere, star-swept landscape where you may go a whole day without seeing another vehicle. Established in 1961 as a sanctuary for the San (Basarwa) people, the reserve still carries that human story in its sands: it is at once a place of ancient hunter-gatherer heritage and of raw desert wildlife, from the famous black-maned lion and rare brown hyena to thundering herds of springbok and gemsbok that gather on the old fossil river valleys after the summer rains.

National park

Botswana · BW

Nxai Pan National Park

Nxai Pan National Park is one of Botswana's most arresting landscapes — a vast, ancient fossil lakebed that transforms from pale, windswept salt pan into a green sea of short grass after the summer rains, drawing tens of thousands of migrating zebra and blue wildebeest in one of southern Africa's great wildlife spectacles. Located in the north-eastern Kalahari, just off the Maun–Nata highway, it is home to the legendary Baines' Baobabs, a grove of trees so unchanged since Thomas Baines painted them in 1862 that standing among them feels like stepping into a watercolour. Despite its remoteness, Nxai Pan is surprisingly accessible and rarely crowded. The flat, open terrain makes wildlife viewing easy, and the park supports an unusual mix of species — springbok and impala grazing side by side, desert-adapted elephants dusted ghost-grey with clay, and one of Botswana's best cheetah populations patrolling the grass. Whether you arrive for the green-season migration, the dry-season waterhole theatre, or a dawn pilgrimage to the baobabs, Nxai Pan rewards patience with some of the most raw and unforgettable scenery in the Kalahari.

Lake

Botswana · BW

Leopard Pan

Leopard Pan — also known locally as Lengau Pan — is a wide, sun-bleached salt pan set in the northern reaches of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve, just five kilometres north of Sunday Pan and slightly beyond the famous Deception Valley. What makes it special for the self-drive camper is its solitude: when vehicles crowd Deception Valley, Leopard Pan often sits deserted, offering an intimate, uninterrupted game-viewing experience from a single rustic campsite perched at the pan's bushy edge.

Reservoir

Botswana · BW

Shashe Dam

Shashe Dam is a vast artificial lake in northeastern Botswana, set in the sweeping landscape of the North-East District about 25 kilometres southwest of Francistown. Built in the early 1970s to supply water to mining towns, it has since become a beloved recreational spot for locals and a wildlife haven on the Shashe River. The reservoir stretches 15 kilometres long and up to 4.2 kilometres wide, creating a dramatic expanse of open water in a semi-arid region. While ambitious tourism development plans have been drawn up, the area remains largely a place of natural beauty and informal recreation — perfect for travellers seeking an off-the-beaten-path experience in Botswana's less-visited northeast.

Finding your next place…

A little more
of Botswana.

Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Nxai Pan National Park

Leopard Pan

Shashe Dam

Finding your next place…

A little more
of Botswana.

Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Nxai Pan National Park

Leopard Pan

Shashe Dam