Botswana: reviews from our travellers

"Everything we had hoped for!!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

All was perfect." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"5*.
A few special mentions for individual excursions:

Turnstone tours - did a trip down to Sandwich Bay with Wayne. This was excellent.

Francois - we had booked the kayaking trip to see the seals. Rather than the lady who normally does it (she was on holiday) we were taken out by Francois, who runs a competing tour (though they seem to share bookings). He was excellent and gave us an incredible day's kayaking. Highly recommended.

Georg Erb (Swakop Tour Company) - recommended by our guest house, this was the best tour we did all trip. Georg is superb and knows everything. He has an excellent afternoon tour itinerary and is absolutely essential if you're in Swakopmund. Please promote him - such an interesting afternoon.

Ballooning - Can't remember the name of the company but we did a balloon trip from Kulala Desert Lodge with John. He was outstanding. Definitely worth the money...loved every minute of it and an excellent breakfast too.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Push people to book things to do in Swakopmund up front. It's a dull place just to hang around...but there are excellent excursions around the town. We met some people who hated the place...but they didn't do anything. Don't let people stay there for 3 nights without booking some things to do..." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 6 on a Namibia trip

"The whole trip was a superb experience.

I learnt a lot about the countries I visited, had some great experiences, saw some superb sights including brilliant views of birds, mammals and reptiles and had some insight into different cultures. I was looked after well and had the freedom to explore as I wanted. It was very well organised and ran smoothly.

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It is worth bearing in mind the difference in the cultures of the countries to be visited and the UK. Some people may be unprepared for what they may experience when compared to the UK and Europe." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"Another wonderful holiday arranged by Expert Africa.

We stayed in some amazing places and had great wildlife sightings.

A real adventure." Read full review: 28 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip

"I had the ggod fortune to email Kathy Kays and give her a list of habitats that we wanted to visit and animals we wished to see. Her selection was spot on so we had a truly memorable trip.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

I think that you might tell your visitors to make sure that they take travel pills if they have a problem with small aircraft. In the dry season the updrafts can be quite powerful at times and make for bumpy rides." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 12 on a Botswana safari

"An excellent trip - we enjoyed all the places we stayed & everything went smoothly.

We were really helped by the advice we had from Gwynneth - she was knowledgeable and pragmatic about what we could do and what would be most fun." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 5 on a Namibia trip

"It was a fantastic trip, we enjoyed every moment (apart from me feeling ill on the little planes!). Tracy suggested Susuwe Island Lodge, Tubu Tree and Baines Camp and they could not have been better suggestions, we were delighted with them. They were all a bit different to each other in style and in slightly different habitats so we saw different things, which is what we wanted.

We had a rather lengthy journey from the Royal Livingstone Hotel to Susuwe. We noticed from the map that there is what appears to be a direct road north of the Zambezi and then over a bridge but we were not taken that way, we assumed that it can't be a very good road. However, we learned when we reached Susuwe that it is a good road, a modern bridge and the journey takes 3 hours door to door. It took us 6 hours.

First, 1 hour drive to the Zambezi, checked out of Zambia, speedboat across the river, checked into Botswana, were driven 10 minutes by a woman who was on her mobile the entiire time then transferred to another vehicle and driver - why? He then drove us all the way to meet the vehicle from Susuwe, but we had to check out of Botswana and into Namibia. The journey took twice as long and presumably because of this cost us twice as much, we had to wait at the various immigration and emmigration posts and got another Botswana stamp in the passport to no useful purpose. We would still have been coming back this way of course to Kasane to fly to Tubu Tree, so going there a different way would have made a round trip which would have been more interesting as well as far more convenient. We would like your comments on this please.

When we were offered to change from San Camp to Jacks Camp because of a photo shoot at San we were told there were "a couple" of other guests at Jacks. There were in fact about 12 other guests which is considerably more than "a couple". We immediately thought we shouldn't have changed as if we had been the only proper guests at San we would have had a guide to ourselves, whereas with so many other guests that was not likely. We thought this was very misleading wording by Uncharted Africa.

However, by accident rather than design we did in fact have a - very good - guide to ourselves so were mollified! We were pleased overall that we changed to Jacks, it was quite an experience. Thank you to Megan who pointed out that I was particularly interested in the meerkats and they arranged 2 visits to them into our schedule so that was lovely, and I adored having them crawling over me!

I was amused to read in the Bradt travel guide that there are no meerkats in the Makgadikgadi park. This is plainly not the case!" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Botswana safari

"Well thought out trip - excellent recommendations based on evident local knowledge & adapted to our requirements which were wide-ranging. We were after more than a safari experience - desert, dunes, activities, culture & Victoria Falls were all on our 'list'. Kept us up to date on waiting lists which eventually got us into Sossus Dune & Nxamaseri Lodges - both excellent. Overall, the lodges, accommodation & game viewing trips were good to excellent.

Thanks to Angela & all the team who helped for a first class trip.


Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No" Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 9 on a Namibia trip

"A memorable trip-equal to our experiences in Zambia last year. (No tsetse flies this year!)

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Cannot think of any thing---Thanks" Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 10 on a Botswana safari

"Having done the trip there is somethings I know I'll do different next time, but it was a great holiday." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip