We are currently planning an August/early Sept Botswana trip. However, I have also noted that many camps have lower rates in June. Our priority is wildlife viewing (particularly all the cats, and would like to see some elephant herds forming)and wildlife photography. Would June be a good time to travel, and what would be the best camps for wildlife viewing (cats) at that time of year? Thanks. Laura.

Laura,

June has lower rates, if you are looking at the wilderness safaris camps. For Kwando's camps i.e, lagoon, lebala and kwara......the rates are high season june thru October.

June, the viewing will be decent, but August/sept better especially for cats. The large elephant herds may not be prolific in June. It generally occurs later in the dry season. It could hold more true this year due to lots of water around.

How many days is your trip? If wilderness camps, is your choice.....i would choose Chitabe, Duma Tau and Selinda for a variety of predators.

If you are doing August/Sept, I would highly recommend Kwando safaris. For example, i'm going late August and doing Lagoon, Lebala and Little Kwara (3,4,3) nights each camp......

Hope this helps......

Maybe, Johan can share some insight also.

Hari

Laura,

June is also a fine time to go to Botswana.

Like I said in a previous thread I would recommend Chitabe if you are looking for cats. I also will be there late June 2007.

Hari, gave you already a lot of insight and I can only add the following:

If you want to see it all you have to go to Botswana at different times of year. And even then the floods can make a real difference from year to year at certain places.

F.e. predator and elephant sightings are best at the end of the dry season while birding is best in the rainy season. For seeing wild dogs and their pups I would actually recommend to go in August (especially in the private concessions). F.e. I like the rainy season because everything is lush and green and the sunsets are amazing although you won't see as much game as in the dry season.

Greetings,

Johan

Wilderness safari has changed there shoulder season for 2007. It runs April to June 14th.
cj

Thank you everyone -- that is helpful. We're basically having to decide with doing a private mobile camping safari in Aug/Sept which would bring us to Chobe/Savute and Moremi (Khwai River area), or because of budget push the trip to the shoulder season (June) to get better rates at the permanent tented camps -- our agent had suggested Selinda, Xigera (this may be too water-based for us), and Chitabe for June.
Larua.

Hi Laura,
My husband and I did the Botswana Migration routes safari last year in August. The price was very reasonable, we went to all the areas you are describing and found it to be amazing. If you are interested in this trip I can send you all the info, iten., our pics and thoughts about it. If I remember right, it was around $3,000 (US) each and was 10 days (plus we added a few of our own). Truly amazing - a little more rustic then you might be looking for but all the camps were at least semi-permanent, the food was excellent, the staff was great - and the wildlife viewing and photogrpahy were simply not to be believed (that was our priority too). I know they also had slightly more upscale trips that were almost the exact same as ours except the private bathrooms ensuite. I would highly reccomend our trip to anyone! and I mean highly - it was once in a lifetime, still talk about it everyday unbelieveable!

Both of our trips to Botswana have been in June - we really appreciate the cooler day temperatures and we can cope with the cold nights OK.

One advantage of June in many areas is that it's reasonably dry so animals are congregated in the areas of water supply plus grasses are low so viewing is easy.

Kavey:

Good to get some input from you as I see many of your opinions on this post. In addition to great cat viewing, our other priority is seeing some of the congregations of wildlife (particularly elephants) that you refer to here. From what I've read, it seems June is really just the beginning of the large herds forming, and can be dependent on weather and rains. What areas did you visit in June, how were the cat sightings, and how large of elephant herds did you see? Thanks.
Laura.

I did the mobile camping in Chobe, Savute and Moremi in Oct05 and can't wait to do it again. We saw huge herds of elephants several times in several places and a huge pride of lions one evening and the next morning. We only saw leopard and cheetah once or twice each but saw lions many times. We also saw wild dogs once but they were only napping in the shade. We didn't see them in action.

Good luck planning your trip!

June is definitely the beginning only of the dry season and there's always the chance, as in 2004, that the floods have been particularly high that year and haven't yet receded as much as usual.

For that reason we didn't see the huge ele herds at Savuti that we'd hoped for, though we weren't disappointed as we did have some wonderful viewings of wild dogs and cheetah.

Cat viewings have been good - spent hours and hours with leopards (at Mombo), cheetahs (several camps) and lions (most camps) but I can't obviously say whether we'd have seen even MORE at another time of year...

Thanks everyone! We've decided to go in August 2007 for our first Botswana trip -- do want to see the large herds of elephants. To keep costs down, we'll be doing 10 nights mobile camping (Chobe, Savute, Khwai River) and 4 nights at Chitabe. Botswana here we come!

Laura,

Great choice - you won't regret it.

Greetings,

Johan

Laura
Sounds like a good plan - I'm sure you'll see those eles - which camps are you considering?

Hi Kavey:

Our operator is working out the details on campsites in Chobe (riverfront), Savute, and Moremi/Khwai River -- we also plan a day trip to Godikwe lagoon (guess we camp at Third Bridge for that).

permanent camp -- Chitabe.

Laura.

Hi JBM31,
I was so glad to read your post. I am doing the Migration Routes in early June. I'm not really the camping type and I was starting to have some misgivings about whether this was really the way to go (after I booked everything!!). So I feel better after reading your post.
Any tips or advice you think might be useful would be appreciated. I'd love to see your pics. Thanks. [email protected]

OK you guys, now I'm getting nervous. I stayed at Savuti Camp last July and the elephant viewing was fabulous. So this is the first time I'm returning to stay at the same camp, but my trip is in June. Is it true I might not see any elies in the Linyanti? Where are the herds in June (besides Chobe)? I'll also be at Ongava, will I see elies there?

Lin

It depends wholly on the flood water levels. During our 2004 trip (in early June) we were told by camp staff that the eles were usually there in force by that time of the year but were still widely dispersed at the time because the 2004 floods were unusually high (highest for 20 years I believe) and hadn't receded to normal June levels yet...

I don't know what water levels are like this year...

Lin,

I think the flood levels this year are going to be very high.......