Chobe, a 4,680-square miles (12,000-sq.km) National Park home to more than 100,000 elephants. It has one of the largest concentrations of wildlife on the entire African continent. The park offers great game viewing both from land as well as from the river for a different experience. It’s an ideal day trip game drive location from Victoria Falls. Only 3 km from the border of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana border.
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Chobe National Park in Botswana can be accessed from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia by road and border crossing as easy as it can get.
How Do I Get there
From Victoria Falls
From Livingstone, Zambia to Chobe or the town of Kasane is about 50 miles (80 km) via Kazungula border crossing, where you need to cross the Chobe river by ferry between Zambia and Botswana.
From Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Chobe National Park is also about an hour drive via Kazungula land border crossing. The total distance is about 44 miles (70 km).
From Caprivi Strip, Namibia to Chobe
From Namibia’s Caprivi Strip to Chobe National Park can be reached via the Ngoma Bridge over the Chobe River. The distance is about 127 miles (205 km) and the road after the Ngoma Bridge goes through the Chobe National Park and it’s a great stretch of road where you able to view wildlife en route.
Where To Stay
The Big Five Chobe Lodge, Kasane, Botswana
Sanctuary Chobe Chilwero, Lesoma Village, Chobe, Kasane, Botswana
Chobe Sunset Chalets, Hunters Rd, Kasane
Best Time to Visit
May to October is the dry season is the best time to visit Chobe National Park even though August – October is very hot but offers the best game viewing. During this dry season animal’s concentration is its highest around the beautiful Chobe River.
December to March is the rainy season since there is water everywhere so, animals are not desperate for water around the river or waterhole. Most of the animals disappear inside the dense buses making it harder for spotting animals. But for bird watching around the Chobe River is the best during this season.
Useful Information
1. Park fees: BP110 (US$ 11.00) per person, BP 70 (US$ 7.00) car fee
2. Allowed 4×4 only
3. Sedudu Gate is the main entrance located near the town of Kasane at the northeast of the park.
Top Things To Do In Chobe National Park
As part of a package tour, our guide picked us up at 7:30 am from our hotel in Livingstone. They picked few more tourists before hitting the highway towards Botswana border.
The highway through Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park was picturesque and in about an hour of driving, we arrived at Kazungula border crossing. A boat was waiting at the Zambian side of the river. Soon our tour guide cleared Zambian immigration for us we boarded the boat for a 5-7 minutes ride to cross the Chobe River to the Botswana side. Another set of tour guide greeted us on our arrival and again cleared the Botswana immigration for us. After a 10 minutes drive from the border post we arrived at tour company’s rest house located in Kasane town for refreshment. From there Chobe river was not that far just a short walk to get tour boat to join a 3-hour cruise of the Chobe river.
There were a lot of wild animals around the river and very green and fertile so, it’s the best place for viewing animals and birds.
Among the many wildlife I remember seeing red lechwes, herds of elephants, I mean lots of them, buffaloes, impalas, water hogs, monkeys, lizards, and many more. Here are few birds we saw during our cruise especially colorful bee-eater, wire-tailed swallows sat on our boat, Egyptian geese, African Fish-Eagle, African darters were remarkable.
In the water, we saw many hippos and crocodiles. The exiting three hours cruise was over in no time. The boat was comfortable enjoyable.
For buffet lunch, we stopped at Chobe Safari Lodge a beautiful hotel right next to the Chobe river.
After lunch, we entered the park through Sedudu Gate located near the town of Kasane for a thrilling game drive through the forest on a 4×4.
Who would have thought drinking water from a river could be that challenging for a tall and long neck giraffe also required special technique until I saw them in real life, it was magnificent to see the way they bend over then stand up quickly for the water to run down their throats.
Spotting wildlife in real life is absolutely exciting than watching them in National Geography, I saw a lot of them just a few feet away, here are few I can remember like impalas, Kudu, elephants lots of them, crocodiles, lizards, different spices of birds, buffalos, hippos and much more wildlife. The game drive through the park by 4×4 was dusty and very bumpy.
My Opinion and Tips
Have you been to Chobe NP, Botswana? Any additional tips to share?
Please leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you to improve my knowledge.
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