• Botswana is roughly the size of France at 581 730 square km, with a population of roughly 1.4 million, one of the lowest population densities in Africa, and indeed the world. Over 17% of Botswana's land area has been set-aside as national parks and game reserves. From the lush green of the Moremi Game Reserve in the north to the red desert dunes in the south, to the savannah grasslands of Chobe National Park and the Mopani woodland of the Mashatu, there is a wide variety of wildlife in Botswana, where great areas of wilderness have been carefully preserved to offer visitors an opportunity to experience nature at its very best.
• Moremi, hunted by the Bushman as long as 10,000 years ago, was initiated by the Batawana tribe and covers some 4,871 km2, as the eastern section of the Okavango Delta. Moremi is mostly described as one of the most beautiful wildlife reserves in Africa. It combines mopane woodland and acacia forests, floodplains and lagoons. It is the great diversity of plant and animal life that makes Moremi so well known.
• The reserve enjoys a wide diversity of habitat and is well known for the height of the trees in the mopane tongue, which covers the central area. However, the mainland part forms only about thirty percent of the reserve and is, in many ways untypical - the remaining area being part of the Okavango Delta. Birdlife is prolific and varied, ranging from water birds to shy forest dwellers. Elephants are numerous, particularly during the dry season, as well as a range of other wildlife species from buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, hyena, jackal and the full range of antelope, large and small, including the red lechwe. Rhino, both black and white, were here in the past, but most of the few remaining have been sought out for translocation to the protection of a sanctuary, away from the attentions of illegal hunters. Wild dog, whose numbers are so rapidly dwindling elsewhere, are regularly sighted in the Moremi and have been subject to a project being run in the area since 1989 so these animals are often seen wearing collars placed on them by the researchers. It is claimed that the Moremi area contains about thirty percent of all living African Wild dogs.
• The Okavango Delta represents the extreme contrast of a water-filled world in an otherwise arid desert: abundant water, sunlight and soil combine to form a paradise bursting with life. It is in the Okavango Delta and Moremi Game Reserve that visitors will find unforgettable beauty. In the lush indigenous forests of the delta and its islands, and along the floodplains spawned by this great marriage of water and sand, more than 400 species of birds flourish.
• With the exception of the eastern part, three quarters of Botswana is technically a desert. This makes the Okavango Delta remarkable. It is a wonderful wetland within a desert, getting its waters from rain falling in central Africa, 1000 km away. The Okavango Delta is one of the largest inland deltas in the world. It provides sustenance to a rich profusion of wildlife, and it is still in its natural state - unspoilt and unpolluted.
• The dry riverbeds of the Savute Channel (often described as one of, if not the best, wildlife-viewing area in Africa today. Savuti boasts one of the highest concentrations of wildlife left on the African continent. Animals are present during all seasons, and at certain times of the year their numbers can be staggering. With a bit of luck you will probably see nearly all the major species: giraffe, elephant, zebra, impala, tsessebe, roan, sable, wildebeest, kudu, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog, eland and accompanying predators including lion, hyena, jackal, bat-eared fox and possibly even cheetah and wild dog.
• Savute is famous for its predators, particularly its resident lions and spotted hyena populations. Sometimes you will have them uncomfortably close, as both they and marauding hyenas do wander through the campsite. Do NOT feed them. Almost certainly you will hear lion at night.
• Geographically, Savuti is an area of many unknowns. One of the greatest mysteries is the Savuti Channel itself, which has over the past 100 years inexplicably dried up and recommenced its flow several times. The present dry period started in 1982, and was spectacularly ended in 2010. I was there, trying to unsuccessfully cross the river. It was simply too deep, but what a sight!
• A major feature of Chobe National Park is its elephant population. First of all, the Chobe elephant comprise part of what is probably the largest surviving continuous elephant population in the world. This population covers most of northern Botswana plus north western Zimbabwe. The Botswana's elephant population is currently estimated at around 120,000. This elephant population has built up steadily from a few thousand since the early 1900s and has escaped the massive illegal off take that has decimated other populations in the 1970s and 1980s.
• The Chobe elephant are migratory, making seasonal movements of up to 200 kilometres from the Chobe and Linyanti rivers, where they concentrate in the dry season, to the pans in the southeast of the park, to which they disperse in the rains. The elephants in this area have the distinction of being the largest in body size of all living elephants, though the ivory is brittle and you will not see many huge tuskers among these rangy monsters.
• Visitors travelling through the park should remember that this is essentially a wilderness area and, as such, no services are available between Kasane and Maun. Because of this, it is my habit to carry basic safety items such as extra water, food, fuel, torches, wheels, tools, jacks and pumps. It is once again stressed that a capable four-wheel drive vehicle is essential.

Which brings me to the very reason for choosing Botswana - it is one of very few places left mostly untouched on this planet, unlike so many other premier destinations which are, to my view, over-developed and too commercialized. Quality sightings of the "big five" are virtually guaranteed, not to mention the numerous antelope species and hundreds of bird species.

That means no fences around campsites, not even around the Reserves or National parks - the ancient natural wildlife migration routes are left untouched. It also means very few tarred roads; mostly tracks suited to 4x4 vehicles only, leading to less traffic pollution which further enhances the pristine wilderness experience.

• This in turn, means photographic heaven.
• Less competition at a kill, should one be lucky enough to witness it.
• Small wonder so many television documentaries are being shot there!

There are some drawbacks though... one needs intimate knowledge of the tracks there, in the rainy season many tracks disappear under the floodplains, there are no (very few) road signs to follow, no fuel stops in Moremi, through Savute up to Chobe, thick sand, thick mud... the list goes on.