South Africa, Botswana, Namibia 2024
(Updated)
We depart January 15th, arrive in Johannesburg on the 17th and return on April 22nd.
For this trip, Ultimate Routes has booked everything for us in three different countries and for a very reasonable price! The entire process has been pretty easy and relatively quick. The only thing that has taken some time is communicating the exact itinerary we wanted and getting some changes made where we needed. With a few emails and a few days back and forth, we managed to work it all out. They are very knowledgeable about parks and campsites throughout Southern Africa.
Just FYI: on our last trip to Southern Africa (2021-2022), we worked with Botswana Footprints to book campsites in Mabuasehube and Khutse Game Reserve. The folks at Botswana Footprints were nice and professional and they booked our campsites for us, but the entire process was very slow (weeks and weeks and weeks before we heard anything from them). It was a bit stressful because we didn’t know if we really had campsites booked until close to departure. We also had some issues with receiving our documents in time. Still it was better than trying to book the parks ourselves directly.
Postscript: We’ve just arrived home after three months of traveling Southern Africa. One thing we’d do differently is not book everything ahead of time. The only exception would be, possibly, the Botswana national parks. We found we changed our mind as we traveled and circumstances changed. Next time we will keep the flexibility of not booking too much in advance.
17 January through 22 April 2024
| Night 1-3 | Johannesburg – The Residence Hotel |
| Night 4-10 | Marakele National Park |
| Night 11-14 | Morukuku Owners House, Madikwe Game Reserve |
| Night 15-16 | Gaborone Airbnb |
| Night 17 | Kalahari Rest, Kang, Botswana |
| Night 18-25 | Mabuasehube – 8 nights total: Mabua Campsite #4 and Mpaya Campsites #1, #2, and Mpaya Reserve. General Info from Tracks4Africa and Botswana gov’t; helpful from Ostrich Trails |
| Night 26 | Jwaneng, Meyers Guesthouse |
| Night 27 | Hilton Hotel, Gaborone |
| Night 28 | Gaborone Airbnb |
| Night 29-33 | Khutse Game Reserve 5 nights total – start: Khutse Pan Campsite #9; next, Molose Campsite #3. General Info from Tracks4Africa and Botswana gov’t; helpful from Ostrich Trails |
| Night 34-36 | Gaborone Airbnb |
| Night 37 | Khama Rhino Sanctuary – Campsite #5. General Info from Tracks4Africa; helpful from Ostrich Trails |
| Night 38 | Rakops River Lodge. General Info from Tracks4Africa |
| Night 39-42 | Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) 8 nights total – start: Sunday Pan Campsite #2. General Info from Tracks4Africa and Botswana gov’t; helpful from Ostrich Trails |
| Night 43-45 | CKGR – Passage Valley Campsite #3 |
| Night 46 | CKGR – Sunday Pan Campsite #2 |
| Night 47 | Boteti River Camp |
| Night 48-49 | Elephant Sands |
| Night 50-52 | Chobe – Ihaha Campsite #8. General Info from Tracks4Africa; helpful info on Chobe from Stuck in Low Gear |
| Night 53-56 | Bwabwata NP – Nambwa Campsite #2 |
| Night 57-58 | Ngepi Camp |
| Night 59 | Simanya River Lodge Campsite. General Info from iOverlander |
| Night 60-61 | Omunjandi Restcamp – Campsite |
| Night 62-66 | Epupa Falls – Omarunga Lodge. General Info from iOverlander |
| Night 67-73 | Onduli Ridge, Ultimate Safaris |
| Night 74-76 | Erongo Rocks – Granite Campsite |
| Night 77 | Donkerhuk West Farm (Namibia) |
| Night 78-81 | Wolwedans, Dune Camp (NamibRand Nature Reserve) |
| Night 82-83 | Mount D’Urban Campsite (Namibia) |
| Night 84-88 | McDougall’s Baai, Port Nolloth (South Africa) |
| Night 89 | Olive Grove Cottage, Koringberg (South Africa) |
| Night 90 | Cape Town – return 4×4 and pick up car — head to Franschhoek |
| Night 91-96 | Franschhoek (South Africa) |
| Day 97 | Depart Cape Town for Istanbul — Seattle, Turkish Air |