Botswana 7 Day Itinerary

One region done properly, rather than three regions done badly. The Delta week, and what it actually costs you in driving.

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Plains zebra grazing in Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana. Photo: diego_cue, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A Botswana 7 day itinerary is a one-region trip. That is not a limitation to work around; it is the honest arithmetic of a country where Maun and Kasane sit about 600 km apart on tar, and where the interesting driving is measured in hours per 100 km rather than kilometres per hour. Spend the week in the Okavango and you come home having seen something properly. Spend it crossing the country and you come home having seen the A3.

This page sets out the week we would actually book: Maun as the hinge, Moremi Game Reserve for the reserve habitat, and Khwai next door for the things Moremi does not permit. It also gives the flown alternative, because for a lot of people seven days is exactly the length at which flying stops being an extravagance and starts being the only way the trip works.

In this guide

• Who this itinerary suits
• The route at a glance
• Day by day
• The flown alternative
• When to do this trip
• What to cut if you lose a day
• Where this route extends

Who this Botswana 7 day itinerary suits

This week suits travellers who have accepted that Botswana is large. It works best for self-drivers with some experience of sand and no fixed expectations about daily mileage, and for first-time visitors who would rather understand one ecosystem than photograph four.

It suits you less if the trip has to include the Chobe riverfront. Maun to Kasane is roughly 600 km of tar via Nata, which is a full driving day in each direction. Committing two of seven days to that road leaves five, and five days split across two regions is thinner than six days in one. If Chobe is non-negotiable, the honest answer is either to fly one leg or to look at the 10-day itinerary, which is where the two-region trip starts to breathe.

It also suits anyone who wants night drives and walking. Moremi is a game reserve and does not permit either. Khwai, the community concession on its north-eastern boundary, does. Pairing the two in one week is the single most useful structural decision in this itinerary.

The route at a glance

Day by day

Day 1 — Arrive Maun

Maun is the hinge of almost every northern Botswana trip: the last dependable fuel, cash and provisioning point before the reserve, and the airport most itineraries start from. Give it a night rather than trying to collect a vehicle and reach a campsite the same afternoon. There is no fuel, no shop and no reliable signal inside Moremi, so everything you have forgotten becomes a three-day problem rather than a ten-minute one.

Use the afternoon for the unglamorous list: fuel and jerry cans, water, food for four days, cash, and confirmation of your campsite bookings. Our 4×4 and vehicle requirements page covers what Botswana Tourism actually expects a self-drive camper to carry, including at least 100 litres of fuel in long-range tanks or metal jerry cans and at least 20 litres of water per person.

Days 2–3 — Moremi Game Reserve

South Gate (Maqwee) is about 92 km from Maun. That is a long half-day in a loaded 4×4 rather than an hour drive, because the surface deteriorates well before the gate. Leave early, and treat the arrival day as a driving day with game viewing attached rather than the reverse.

Moremi is the only part of the Okavango Delta anyone can drive into, and the road network around Xakanaxa and Third Bridge is where nearly all self-drive routing happens. Inside the reserve the rules are strict and worth knowing before the gate: daytime driving on established tracks at 40 km/h, no night drives, no walking safaris and no off-road driving. Two nights lets you work one area properly instead of committing both days to transit.

A note on expectations that most guides skip: leopard sightings are often described as better on the Khwai side, and the reason is access rather than density. Inside the reserve, an animal that leaves the track is one you stop watching.

Days 4–5 — Khwai

Khwai (NG19) is the community concession bordering Moremi, commonly self-driven from Maun and reached from the reserve through North Gate. It matters here because it sits outside the reserve, which is why night drives and walking are permitted. Two nights gives you an evening drive, a morning drive and a walk without having to choose between them.

This is also where a guided activity earns its money even on a self-drive trip. Reading a floodplain is a learned skill, and one guided night drive tends to change how you watch for the rest of the week.

Day 6 — Return to Maun

Drive back the way you came, or loop out through South Gate depending on water levels and current track conditions. Aim to be in Maun with daylight to spare. A night in town before an early charter or scheduled flight removes the one genuinely avoidable risk in this itinerary, which is a missed departure caused by a slower-than-expected final leg.

If you have energy left, the Okavango Delta and Maun page covers what the town is good for beyond provisioning.

Day 7 — Depart

Maun is a port of entry, though its published immigration hours look narrower than the airport working day, which is worth confirming if you are leaving on an unusual routing rather than the standard hop to Johannesburg.

The flown alternative

Seven days is the length at which flying stops being a luxury and becomes a structural fix. Fly-in trips land at Maun, cross to a light aircraft and are at camp within the hour; itineraries are then stitched together by successive short flights, which is why a Delta trip can take in camps with no driveable track between them. A hop to a Khwai-area airstrip runs to roughly half an hour.

The flown version of this week is Maun for a night, then three or four nights across one or two concession camps, then out. It buys access to the water Delta and the private concessions, which no self-drive route reaches, and it buys night drives, walking and off-road tracking as standard because concession rules differ from national park rules. It costs considerably more per day and imposes strict light-aircraft luggage limits, soft bags only in practice.

There is also a middle option, and it is the one we would recommend most often at this length: drive Maun to Moremi and Khwai in your own vehicle, then fly out from a Delta airstrip rather than repeating the drive. The two shapes fail in opposite ways. Driving is exposed to mud and flood; flying is expensive but unaffected by either, and it converts a long backtrack into an hour.

When to do this trip

The dry months concentrate animals around remaining water and make the tracks more predictable, which is why they dominate bookings. The green season from November to March brings birds, newborn antelope and lower rates, set against harder game viewing and tracks that can close. Moremi has reopened with restricted access following seasonal flooding in the past, so a route that looks fine on a map in August may not exist in March.

Whichever window you choose, check current access before committing to a campsite that can only be reached one way. Our best time to visit Botswana page sets out the trade-offs by region, and the Okavango flood cycle explains why the water arrives when it does.

What to cut if you lose a day

Lose a day and the answer is not to compress every stop by one night. Drop Khwai and stay three nights in Moremi, or drop Moremi and spend three in Khwai, depending on whether reserve habitat or night activity matters more to you. Both are better trips than four bases in six nights.

What not to cut is the Maun night at either end. The first one protects the whole trip; the last one protects the flight home.

Where this route extends

Add three days and the natural extension is north to the Chobe riverfront, which is where the 10-day Botswana itinerary goes. Add a week and the pans and the Kalahari come into range, covered in the 14-day and 21-day routes.

Extending sideways rather than lengthways is also worth considering. From Kasane, Victoria Falls is 80 km away, and the Trans-Kalahari Highway runs west towards Namibia. Neither belongs in a seven-day trip, but both shape how you might plan the next one.

Plan the next stage

• Moremi Game Reserve — gates, camps, rules and what self-drivers should expect.
• Maun — the hinge town, and how long to give it at each end.
• Self-drive Botswana — the tar network, honest distances and what the country demands of a vehicle.
• Travel planning — visas, money, health and connectivity.

Official sources

• Botswana Tourism Organisation — Moremi Game Reserve (area, gates, permitted activities)
• Botswana Tourism Organisation — Climate (seasons, temperatures, optimal travel window)

Reviewed August 2026. Park access, gate times, flood levels and flight schedules change; if something here is out of date, tell us.