Trip Overview

Our trip begins in Johannesburg, South Africa. A driver will pick you up outside of customs and transport you to a pleasant guesthouse nearby. That evening, we’ll have a group dinner, answer questions, and go over the trip to come!

The following morning, we’ll depart for the airport and fly to Maun, Botswana where our safari begins. Our local safari guides will meet us at the airport in Maun and we’ll quickly load up the safari vehicles and hit the road for the Okavango Delta!

It’s a couple of hours on the road to our first camp, but we’ll take most of the afternoon to get there, as we experience our first game drive in the vast Moremi Preserve.

With abundant elephants, many species of antelope, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, predatory lions, leopards, hyenas, and African painted dogs, the Okavango is a playground for wildlife photographers. We’ll spend three nights at our first camp from which we will explore the Xakanaka and Xini areas on morning and evening game drives.

Early each morning, before dawn, we will wake to hot wash water being poured into the basins outside our tent door and the friendly wake-up call of the camp staff. It sounds hard to rise before dawn each morning, and yet the songs of birds, distant roars of lions, and the abundance of life in Botswana makes it easy.

As soon as the sun cracks the horizon we’ll head out in the vehicles for a few hours of wildlife photography. Mid-morning we’ll stop for tea and coffee at some scenic spot before making our way back to camp before the mid-day heat. After lunch and a siesta in the shade, we’ll venture back out in the vehicles for the evening photo session. The sweet light is brief in the tropics of Botswana and we will make the most of each moment!

On our fourth day, we’ll relocate to the northern part of Moremi near the San village of Khwai, for our final two nights in the Okavango. Water levels permitting, in Khwai, we will have the opportunity to get out in pole-driven mokoro canoes, the traditional transportation through the Okavango. This is a rare chance to see wildlife from outside the vehicle and provides outstanding photo opportunities.

On our final morning, we’ll make our way to the riverside village of Kasane, stopping along the way for final images of any wildlife we encounter. At the surprisingly modern airport, we’ll catch a mid-day flight back to Johannesburg, where we’ll wrap up our trip with dinner, drinks, stories, and a comfortable night at the Sunrock Guesthouse.