Why safari in Botswana is the ultimate family holiday with teenagers
A lion in Qorokwe, Botswana.
At Vumbura Plains, in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, hippo audio is the soundtrack to our siesta.
Honks and grunts and snorts emanate from the delta’s waters below us as we lounge on our deck after a thrilling morning of wildlife encounters.
We are sleepy after a 5am wake-up call, unlike our three teenagers who I can hear shrieking like baboons in their tented suite next door.
Splashing about in their plunge pool the early start – the first of six days of rising at 5am – hasn’t taken anything out of them. If anything, they can’t quite believe where they have woken up.
It’s my second time in this part of the world, a lush Garden of Eden quenched by the waters that run down from the Angolan Highlands into the Kalahari Desert.
Creating a vibrant inland delta, this vast emerald patchwork is home to kaleidoscopic birds, mega-herds of elephants – the largest numbers in Africa – and some beautiful safari camps.
With a big birthday on the horizon, I didn’t want a party or a shiny gift in a box. Instead, I wished for the family holiday of a lifetime, which meant only one thing - a safari in Botswana.
Our first two days are shared with Dennis, a knowledgeable and charismatic guide whose love of this land proves infectious. Aboard his Land Rover, my kids are introduced to the beauty of Botswana and her beasts.
Boundaries between land and water blur in the delta. Serpentine waters snake through jewel-bright plains. We sit rapt watching a joyful reunion of lion brothers. Stately sable, tsessebe and kudu punctuate our views.
We follow lions across the floodplains of the world's biggest delta and breakfast near a hippo-filled lagoon at dawn.
Fresh intestines and a bloodied lechwe carcass with a smashed ribcage lead us into a game of hide-and-seek with an elusive leopard. It’s a long, thrilling game, which the cat ultimately wins. But there will be a next time.
Enjoying an afternoon floating on meandering waterways we glide softly in mokoros – traditional dugout canoes – moving silently through a fluid garden of lilies propelled through the reeds.
The air is sweet with sage, basil and turpentine grass, yellow, green and pink with feathery fronds dancing on the breeze - a pretty layer of camouflage for hungry marauders.
By night the delta crackles and fizzes with song: high-pitched shrieks, melodious whistles, the techno riffs of shrill calls, and rhythmic hoots. It is a non-stop cacophony of joy, a reminder of the bugs and birds and beasts that are the true inhabitants of this paradise.
At Qorokwe, the terrain changes, with acacia woodlands dotting the floodplains and palm-dotted islands.
Each Wilderness camp looks as though it has been dropped into the wilds from above, traceless low-impact structures, each a luxurious outpost of natural fabrics in harmony with the scenery.
Here Jacob is our guide. Having begun life as a tracker 20 years ago he shares stories about his childhood and village life.
He recalls hunting trips in this area, four or five villagers in mokoro catching impala, cutting and drying it on the trees before loading up the animal and poling back to the village.
There, single-room huts were made from the mud of termite mounds with thatch roofs woven from grass. The kids are rapt learning about life cooking outdoors with no power, just kerosene lamps, and no schools, no tarmac roads, no infrastructure.
At Qorokwe we spend an hour tailing a 14-lion convoy as they stake out a smorgasbord of zebra and giraffe on a wide open plain.
It’s an intensely thrilling experience, as Jacob manoeuvres our vehicle to allow us watch them stalking and hiding, waiting patiently for a feast, before the giraffes blow their cover.
There are no fences here – it’s the true heart of sub-Saharan Africa and we are invested, enthralled and acutely aware of our privilege witnessing nature at its rawest.
Sundowners in Botswana are a nightly pleasure, somewhere to watch the sun set away from camp. Accompanied by a tie-dyed sky, with ilala palms silhouetted against it, it’s a ritual we all enjoy together.
Driving at dusk offers a different experience too, that’s just as thrilling as full light.
We encounter a lion lying in the road blocking our path; and an elephant parked defiantly in our way making us backup and drive around him.
Before we reach Qorokwe a hyena leaps out of the bush startling us, a hippo crosses our path stinking of dried mud and an impala darts past pursued by an African wildcat so fast we miss it.
Flying between three camps means both my boys have the opportunity to sit beside the khaki-clad pilots on different legs, affording them the best seat on the house for animal spotting. (Our daughter is less keen on the cockpit offer)
Landing on tiny airstrips in the middle of the African bush proves an experience no one can forget.
Transfers are by small propeller planes, also owned and operated by Wilderness. This creates a seamless safari experience with camp transfers neatly connected up.
Wherever we land our next guide is waiting with his vehicle ready to whisk us away for our next adventure.
Our last destination is Duma Tau in Linyanti, a luxurious tented camp to the north of the Okavango Delta.
Forming a natural border between Botswana and Namibia it’s a wild, remote wilderness of floodplains, lagoons and grasslands lush with mopane and Kalahari appleleaf woodlands, and riverine forests of jackalberry and leadwood.
Here the golden light dances against the grasses, marauding baboons roam clinging to tiny babies and elephants cross the deep Linyanti river at the camp, playfully spraying each other with water.
Sitting on our deck overlooking Botswana’s pristine terrain I wish I could bottle this feeling of contentment. It's been an unforgettable week of family bonding, of harmony and of beauty.
Free from technology, rested and mesmerised by nature, peace washes over me. This is my happy place.
And now, too, it is my family’s happy place.
Breakfast at camp before a sunrise departure on our own Land Rover with private guide.
Morning game drive for 3-4 hours, with a break in the bush for coffee and treats.
Drives depend on sightings and individual preferences.
Return to camp for brunch or lunch.
Relaxation, swimming and siesta time.
Afternoon tea on the main deck with other guests before heading out on evening drive.
Sundowners before a return to camp in the dark for drinks, dinner and maybe fireside stories with guides around the boma.
“Finding out that I was being given the opportunity to visit Botswana was like a dream come true. My mum had always described her favourite country as “heaven on earth”, something I couldn’t understand before we went.
Flying between camps was surreal, feeling weightless in little propeller aeroplanes as we scoured the plains below for wildlife. The camps were the most enchanting places I’ve ever seen.
From the baboon-proof locks and leopard alarms to the hippos lounging in the waterhole in front of our room, we felt part of the wilderness. Not only were the camps stunning, but the staff felt like a family and were always perfectly in sync with what we needed.
An unforgettable holiday, the game drives were so much fun and the highlight of our trip. One favourite Okavango Delta memory was watching two lionesses playing with their litter of cubs.
I also loved our last day at Vumbura Plains, tracking down the culprit of a horrific crime against a red lechwe. We first found a juvenile bateleur eagle eating fresh innards, which lead us to a bloody half-eaten carcass hidden beneath a bush. We spent an hour searching for the predator, a leopard, and while we never found him it was so interesting to see how guides use nature’s clues and trails to locate animals and unlock stories.
We were so lucky on our drives, seeing almost every animal in the delta and Linyanti thanks to our skilled guides. When we weren’t watching the animals or birds we were learning all about the plants, Tswana culture and our guides’ lives.
We even learnt to speak some Tswana in Qorokwe. The whole safari was unforgettable from beginning to end. Botswana really did feel like heaven on earth.
Mahlatini Luxury Travel (01 906 1883; mahlatini.com) offers an 8-night holiday to Vumbura Plains (2 nights), Qorokwe (2 nights) and Duma Tau (2 nights) from €13,740 per person sharing on an all-inclusive basis.
Includes daily lodge activities, international flights from Dublin, light aircraft and road transfers.
- Jillian was a guest of Wilderness, wildernessdestinations.com
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