Botswana: reviews from our travellers

"I knew from my first conversation with Megan over a year ago that this would be an excellent trip. We're been to Africa a few times so had a good idea of what we wanted and Megan certainly delivered. She listened, asked the right questions and helped steer us to a short list of camps that suited our wish for small camps and camps run by different companies for variety. It all worked perfectly, including the travel arrangements.

On one transfer from a houseboat to our first camp we were looked after by six different people, and had a very pleasant two hour break at a river side lodge whilst waiting for our plane. It all happened seamlessly and with great good humour. That takes some organising!

Megan and Expert Africa are a class act!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"All arrangements worked perfectly, all lodges were great and welcoming, all meals in the lodges were excellent and the whole experience was wonderful." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 8 on a Namibia trip

"We had a fabulous time! Unfortunately, this once-in-a-lifetime trip makes us want to go again, and again, and again!

I do hope the concessionaire's are careful not to over build. They are able to charge top dollar because of their high concentration of animals to a low density of visitors. But when vehicles are stacking up, waiting for a 10 to 15-minute turn to see the animals, the concentration is already too high for my tastes. There is something to be said for having more eyes in the field, because you then have more opportunity to make a good sighting. But there needs to be a balance, and we saw many new camps being added, and many camps are increasing the number of guests they can accommodate. As someone going to visit, note not only the number of tents in your camp, but of all the camps within the concession.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
With your booking, Expert Africa has a general interest, basic requests, etc box; it would be nice to be able to customize that for each activity and/or camp to accommodate interests and expectations for different locations.

You guys and gals at Expert Africa are great! Everyone I've dealt with, though primarily Maruska and her sister Saskia when she was still with you, has been most helpful, honest, and pretty-darn-accurate, which I appreciate more than I can express!

Filling out this review has been a nightmare for me. Next time I will type things out elsewhere, and then cut and paste them in, which should work. When I tried to go back to previous page, whatever I'd typed was swallowed. If I hit save, it kicked me out, and I had to start again at the very beginning. I hated having to scroll forward through every page from the beginning, so I tried cheating and leaving the form open, but it would time out, again swallowing whatever I'd typed. It would be nice to be able to open on any page, so I could complete as time and mood allowed. Oh, well.

Sorry it's taken me so long to complete. I know I really appreciated other people's reviews and used the reviews heavily in making my choices--I would also like to see a scale of 1 - 10, because I would've liked to differentiate between good and excellent with a very good. The overall quality of all these camps is at least good, but some were far more excellent than others." Read full review: 34 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip

"Tiring flights to and from. Camp schedules were a bit long for someone with "jet lag', but well worth it." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"Our whole trip in Africa was a 'once in a lifetime' one for us.

We have been considering this for some time and were very fortunate to do it with 6 great friends.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Not any that would help to improve it really." Read full review: 2 nights in Africa; 2 on a Botswana safari

"Could not have been better. Had a wonderful time.
Thanks to Chloe for all the hard work she put in sorting out the logistics/dates and all her friendly emails.

Very impressed with &Beyond as we can't recall having been at one of their camps before. Good to mix Wilderness
and &Beyond.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No. Expert Africa the tops." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 7 on a Botswana safari

"See my detailed comments for the two legs of our trip." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 4 on a Botswana safari

"EA did a great job of making all part of our trip work smoothly and integrate well.

The only wrinkle was that we were doing Namibia and Botswana, so we worked with two different team members at EA who had experience in each country in the earlier phases of trip planning (good), but neither of them seemed to take responsibility for the overall trip (the wrinkle) until we asked them to figure it out and put one person in charge of pushing things forward." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 7 on a Namibia trip

"A magical trip combining the wonder of Victoria Falls with the splendour of the Okavango Delta.

Beautiful countries, friendly and welcoming people, amazing wildlife and superb service. What more could anyone want!

Thank you Megan for all your time spent advising, sharing, deliberating and finally, once all of our many questions had been addressed, organising such a smoothly run trip. Thank you also to Expert Africa for the copy of Bradt Botswana - essential reading before the journey, and to Nick and the team for rearranging our flights when our itinerary had to be changed due to illness.

We will certainly be recommending Expert Africa to all of our friends.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

I cannot think of anything to improve your service but here's a few pieces of information that could be useful :-

At the Waterberry Lodge it's Weaver that has the bath not Swallow.

Tipping is always a difficult and personal issue but we followed and appreciated your advice . However Wilderness Safaris suggest up to three times the amount per person per day for general staff - Chitabe/Chitabe Lediba's guidelines were $10 - $15 per guest per day and Xigera recommended $10 per guest per day. This left us in a quandary! Whilst their service is indeed excellent we found their suggested amount excessive given the already high cost of the stay.

I'd asked about availability of robes in camps prior to our trip and can now happily report back that the above three Wilderness camps all supplied cosy fleece dressing gowns for those chilly winter mornings!

The price of a private vehicle with Kwando does not include a private boat whereas with Wilderness it does." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 14 on a Botswana safari

"This was an excellent holiday and very expertly arranged by Expert Africa! Megan was very helpful and efficient throughout.

The safari experience was unforgettable and the Seychelles a lovely relaxing set of islands to visit. Generally everything was of a very high quality and ran like clockwork. The minor glitches were all sorted efficiently and promptly.

We would (and indeed already have) recommend Botswana and the Seychelles to anyone and would especially praise and recommend Expert Africa. Thanks for helping us have a great trip and celebrating a special birthday in style!" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari