At the heart of Botswana’s safari areas is the Okavango Delta, where Africa’s third-largest river fans across desert sands in a myriad of shimmering waterways and lagoons, giving birth to a green oasis half the size of Switzerland. A safari here is unique and a game watcher’s paradise as one of the world’s richest ecosystems teems with wildlife of all kinds. Though much of the water is seasonal, there are some permanent rivers, and mokoros (traditional poled canoes) glide silently by groves of papyrus and iridescent flocks of birds.

To the north of the Delta the Chobe River, within easy driving distance of the Victoria Falls, attracts some of Africa’s largest Elephant herds; while to the south the extraordinary Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans, drum-flat and shimmering in the sun, give way to the stunning dunes of the Kalahari, home to Bushmen communities. In Botswana’s spectacular and pristine environment tourism treads lightly, with safari lodges kept small and eco-sensitive, visitor numbers strictly limited, and human being’s interference controlled.