🇧🇼 Botswana
Our favorites from the trip
To put the final bow on our 100 Day Adventure, we thought it’d be fun to reflect on our trip “favorites.”
Destination
It’s probably not surprising that our favorite destination on this trip was safari-related, as that was the part of the trip we were most excited for. This particular destination featured a day of both morning and sunset safaris, interrupted only by some time at our remote tented camp inside a national park. The two game drives were stellar—we spotted an incredible amount of wildlife, including our very first leopard, along with a bunch of other great interactions with a wide variety of “top tier” animals. I’m speaking of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Wildlife experience
While we thoroughly enjoyed our experience in Botswana, I think our single favorite experience was following a leopard in Sri Lanka. It was such a surprise when we saw it (the rest of the safari tour that day had been sort of a dud), and then we promptly lost it into the bush. But, we repositioned along a different roadway and were able to track for quite some time, losing it as it entered the dense forest, repositioning elsewhere with the hopes of it again emerging from the vegetation, and guessing correctly several times. Eventually we got a chance to watch it make a (surprisingly lackadaisical) hunting attempt on a spotted deer that just a handful of yards away from us. Seeing a leopard was our primary goal in Sri Lanka, so it was great that it came together like it did.
Country
Overall, our favorite country on the trip was Australia. It was the only country on the trip that we could easily relocate to—just show up tomorrow and feel like we’re still at home. It also helped that we spent most of our time there campervanning around national parks…which, you know, is already probably our favorite thing to do. So as you can imagine, we’ve already started plotting a return trip, and a new quest to circumnavigate the continent, too.
City
Our favorite city (yeah yeah, it’s also a country) was Singapore. Of course, it helps that you arrive in perhaps the most interesting airport in the world. That place is impressive. But overall, it was both a welcome reprieve for us, as well as a quite unique place. After arriving from Sri Lanka after more than a month in Africa—places where roadside trash is seemingly ubiquitous—Singapore felt nearly surgical-table clean. Beyond its cleanliness, it also featured some really interesting architecture. It felt modern, safe, and a bit futuristic.
Meal
On the second leg of our overlanding safari tour, our truck broke down for seven hours on the (effectively shadeless) side of a two-lane highway in Zambia. Not ideal. Eventually, we busted out the cooking equipment and our guide made some simple chicken fajitas. They were glorious. It might have just been the situation, but it was our favorite meal of the trip.
Accommodation
Our favorite accommodation during the trip was our tented camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. This was not the nicest place we stayed, by any measure, but it was among the more memorable. We had to leave our overlanding vehicle and take a 4 hour ride in a safari vehicle just to get there. The camp had very limited electricity, just a couple plugs in the “lobby” tent, which were grossly abused by visitors who concocted a Griswold-style daisychaining of extension cords and chargers that was surely a fire hazard. Luckily, we had prepared for this and used our generous battery capacity instead (it pays to come prepared). Our shower and toilet were outside and open to the air. Baboons bounced on our tent roof during our mid-day siesta. Meals happened in the large “lobby” tent, which was open on one side to a large grassy field where large mammals grazed, or you could sit around the campfire instead.
Brewery
Good craft beer was hard to find on this trip. That’s not too surprising—the places on our itinerary aren’t beer places; after all, you don’t go to rural East Africa for hazy IPAs. That said, we had expected a bit better beer in a few of the major cities we visited. Luckily, our time in the Blue Mountains in Australia helped redeem the beer portion of our trip. That’s because we found Mountain Culture Brewing, which was our trip favorite by a wide margin.
🎥 Recapping our 24-day overlanding safari of Africa
Here’s a video recap of what we thought about our 24-day overlanding safari tour of Africa. What did we like? Dislike? Would we do it again? Find out below.
And here’s a short montage video someone on our tour made for his students—focusing on the first few days of the East Africa portion of our tour—using a 360 camera.
And if you missed it, here’s more on the overlanding truck we used:
https://adventuresaroundthe.world/2025/01/07/a-little-bit-about-the.html
-S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
🎥 Recapping our wildlife experiences in Africa
A video discussion of our wildlife experiences in Africa. Did we see everything we wanted to? What were the game drives like? Find out in the video below. -S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
We did a sunset game drive a few days ago, but a rainy night made for a less than stellar experience. But the two highlights were a (rather vicious) zebra fight and elephants playing the mud. The sunset was pretty nice too! -S 🇿🇲
A few favorite shots from the last few days. -S 🇧🇼🇿🇼
A few shots from tonight‘s river cruise on the Chobe River along the Botswana/Namibia border. -S 🇧🇼
Christmas Eve dinner, cooked out of the truck. -S 🇧🇼
🎥 Updates from our tented camp
We spent two nights in a tented camp in Khwai Conservation Area, with our first “full day” of safari game drives—one in the early morning and another in the late afternoon and past sunset.
Here’s an update on our first morning game safari, which was very fun.
And another update after our sunset game safari, which also includes a bit more on our accommmodations here.
We recorded this second video from our subsequent tented camp near Chobe National Park, which overlooked an elephant watering hole.
Because elephants frequent the area, you also can only move between your tent and the facilities under escort after dark.
We’ll post some more photos of the tented camp facilities in the coming days.
🎥 Roadside elephants in Botswana
Our accommodation tonight… -S 🇧🇼
Just a quick taste of our leopard sighting today. -S 🇧🇼
Some lion photos from this morning’s safari. -S 🇧🇼
We have a bit of unexpected wifi, so here are some hippo pics from the day. -S 🇧🇼
We did a Mokoro canoe today in the Okavango Delta. During the canoe, we came across a bloat of hippos and I was able to capture them making noise. -J 🇧🇼
And some more photos from the Mokoro canoe:
Rainstorm in the Kalahari Desert
We’re off grid the next three nights, staying in a bush camp without electricity, near the Okavango Delta in Botswana. It might be awhile until the next update.
Here are some photos from yesterday, which was mostly a long drive thru the Kalahari Desert during a series of big rainstorms. During a lull, we randomly pulled off to cook lunch out of the truck.
We gave the leftovers to a local family who was very interested in our big vehicle and what the heck we were doing.
I also busted out some local lager, improbably named St Louis, which was among the lowest rated beer on untappd I’ve ever had, and shared with our adventure family. We’re having fun, but dang I miss happy hour at Wren Südhalle!
We ended the day at our hotel, which donates space for a local women-run program that recycles booze bottles from the hotel, melts down the glass, and makes jewelry. We got a little demonstration of the process.
Speaking of the hotel, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with the accommodations so far.
And we’re off on our 24-day safari thru South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania!
Here’s our vehicle for the journey! -S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿