When to Go to the Okavango Delta

When debating the best time to travel to the Okavango Delta, it's important to remember that the Delta has many faces; it is a place that is varied in character, changing from year to year with the fickle floods.

Botswana is a place of 2 distinct seasons: a cool (but increasingly warmer) dry winter from May to October and a hot, wet summer from November to April, but the idiosyncratic Delta in many ways does things in reverse.

Dry Season: May to October

Dusty yellow grasslands transformed into shimmering floodplains, parched channels turned into lifelines of precious water reaching deep into arid bush... Probably the best time to visit the Okavango Delta is in the dry season - the floodwaters have tumbled their way down from the central Angolan highlands, doubling or even tripling the size of the Delta.

It's the best time to go for wildlife: huge numbers of animals make their way out of the dry interior towards the floods; great herds of buffalo and elephant, zebra and wildebeest are concentrated around water sources, attracting a wide range of large predators.

The weather is perfect at this time of year: warm sunny days to enjoy your activities, and cold nights to encourage snug fireside stories or to make it possible to sleep out under a canopy of stars. There's virtually no rain at this time of year which most importantly means very few mosquitoes, thus making it the best time to visit the Okavango Delta from a malaria perspective.

Wet Season: November to April

The wet season presents another side to the Okavango - and the 'when to go' question: the floodwaters are long gone - having evaporated or leaked into the thirsty Kalahari sands - and the rains have begun.

Falling in localised downpours, the rains go some way towards maintaining water levels, but the Delta generally shrinks to its permanent swamps at this time. Some camps in the drier areas are forced to suspend their boating or mokoro activities.

The rains prompt some animals to move away from the Delta and back into the now green and watered interior, reducing the concentrations of game so apparent in the dry season. Some roads become impassable, the mosquitoes are out, and many lodges close at the height of the rains (December to February).

That said, all this is not to say that it's a time when not to visit: the Delta is at its verdant best at this time of year, there are still truckloads of animals and, with the arrival of migrant species, the Delta is a bird watcher's paradise.

Request a Quote |  Add to my wishlist