The water
The Okavango floods at what feels like the wrong time of year
The rain that fills it falls in Angola and takes months to arrive, so the Delta is fullest during Botswana’s dry season. Every planning decision here follows from that, and almost nobody is told it before booking.
Timing
Four things that decide a Delta trip
None of them is which camp is prettiest, which is what most people spend their time on.
How the flood works
It rises in Angola, travels for months, and peaks here in the dry season. The water calendar and the rain calendar run in opposition.
The mechanism
Water camp or land camp
Boats, mokoro and islands, or vehicles, night drives and predators. Some camps are both, and which one depends on your month.
What a day is like
Month by month
What the water is doing, what the ground is doing, and which kind of stay each period suits — with the year-to-year variation stated.
The calendar
Choosing a camp
The one question that prevents the commonest Delta disappointment, and the four others worth asking before you book.
What to askThe question
Not "does this camp do mokoro trips" — that is the wrong question
A camp website lists everything the camp can ever do. Your week gets whatever the water level on your dates permits, which may be a different list entirely.
The right question is: on my exact dates, what will the activities at this camp be? It has a one-sentence answer, any competent operator can give it, and asking it is the difference between arriving expecting a boat and arriving to find a vehicle.
This is the single commonest Botswana disappointment, and it is entirely preventable at the enquiry stage.
- Camps described as offering mokoro may not be, on your dates
- A "water camp" in a low-water year can be running game drives
- Some land camps gain boating when the flood arrives
- Get the answer in writing rather than inferring it from a website
Free download
Timing The Delta
Why the Delta floods at the wrong time of year, and the one question that prevents the commonest Botswana disappointment.
- The flood that arrives from another country
- Why the water and the rain run in opposition
- Water camps, land camps and seasonal ones
- The question that prevents disappointment
- Month by month, broadly
- Why the flood varies year to year
- Moremi and the concessions
- What each kind of stay costs
No cost, no obligation. We ask for an email so we can send it and, if you want it, follow up once.
Before you ask
Questions about the water
Why does the Delta flood in the dry season?
Because the water is not Botswana’s. The Okavango rises in the Angolan highlands, the rain that fills it falls there in the southern summer, and the water then takes months to travel down the river and out across the Kalahari sands.
So the Delta fills long after the rain that made it, generally peaking in the lower Delta somewhere around the middle of the year — during Botswana’s dry, cool season.
Can you tell me exactly when the water will arrive?
No, and neither can anybody else. The flood is a natural system fed by rainfall in another country and it varies genuinely from year to year in both timing and volume.
What a specialist can do is tell you what is typical for your dates, what this particular year is doing as it develops, and which camps are least dependent on getting it right.
Is the green season a mistake?
Not at all, provided you know what you are buying. It is warm and wet, the landscape is green, there are newborn animals and exceptional birding, and the rates are at their lowest of the year.
What it is not is the classic water experience: channels are lower, some water activities may not run, and game is more scattered because water is no longer scarce. Go deliberately rather than by accident.
Water camp or land camp for a first visit?
Both, if the trip can carry it. They are genuinely different kinds of day — boats, mokoro and island walking against vehicles, night drives and predators — and doing one of each gives you the Delta rather than half of it.
If you can only do one and big cats matter to you, take the land camp on concession land. If the water is what drew you here, take the water camp and accept that you will see fewer large herds.
Who actually arranges my safari?
This site is a planning guide. When you send an enquiry it goes to Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Kenya, who prepare your itinerary and quote and handle the booking, the payments and you on the ground.
You deal with one team from the first email to the airport transfer home.
Start planning
Send us your dates first
In the Delta the dates come before the camps, because the dates determine what the camps can actually offer you.
Our Botswana specialist replies within 24 hours with what the water is likely to be doing, which camps suit that, and an itemised price.
- The expected activity mix stated for your actual dates
- Water camps and land camps distinguished explicitly
- The shoulder-month version priced alongside the peak one
- No deposit to see a plan, and no obligation at any point
Who answers
Nomad Africa, our partner travel agency in Nairobi, builds and prices every itinerary we send. You deal with one team, on the ground, for the whole trip.
Founded in 2017 as East Africa’s only dedicated travel magazine, Nomad still publishes — so the people planning your trip are the ones who write about these places for a living.
Get your tailored itinerary and quote
Our Botswana specialist replies within 24 hours with a costed plan built around your dates.
More from our the Okavango guides
Specialist guides across our the Okavango network
Each of these is a focused guide we publish. Same Botswana specialist behind every enquiry.