Botswana is a landlocked country, bordered by Namibia in the west, Zambia in the north, Zimbabwe in the east and South Africa in the south. It is uniformly flat, elevated at a fairly constant 1,000 metres above sea level. The country is approximately the size of France or Texas and offers a somewhat varied chequerboard of terrain.
There are vast arid places of thorn bush and scrub, swamplands and salt pans stretching as far as the eye can see, semi-tropical riverine forests and acacia and mopane woodlands. There are many places to see, stay and savour, from the unforgettable expanses of the Okavango Delta to the remote timeless spaces of the Mabuasehube Game Reserve.
The country’s climate is classed as ‘continental tropical’ although ‘tropical’ is misleading; only the far northern parts around the Chobe River have any lush vegetation. The wet season in Botswana usually begins in October and lasts through to March. In December and January – often the wettest months – rainstorms of huge proportions build up in the later afternoons. In the summer season (November through to March), the days can be extremely hot – often with shade temperatures of over 40° C. In the winter months, the days are balmy warm and the nights are cold, due to the clear night skies.
The ideal visiting times are from April to October, both in terms of comfortable temperatures and game viewing opportunities as wildlife is more concentrated round the natural waterholes and water sources.