Kids Activities in Botswana

What better way to view Botswana’s spectacular wildlife than from the comfort of a specially-adapted 4X4? You’ll head out in the early morning & late afternoon with an experienced guide on the lookout for animals. Families with younger children will need a private vehicle & guide but that simply adds to the experience & gives you greater flexibility with activities.

There’s more water in Botswana than you think. Depending on where you are, you’ll be able to explore by small motor boat as well as from the vantage of a larger river boat, complete with cold drinks & a sunset. It’s a great combination with game drives & a unique way to see animals – especially in the dry season. The Chobe River cruise is especially good.

Something for older children who like to stretch their legs. Choose a lodge which offers walking as an activity & you’ll head off into the bush with a guide to experience Africa underfoot. Informative, educational & fun, guided walks are a great way to see Botswana’s natural details in a safe & professional way.

Family safari programmes include age-appropriate activities that will entertain as well as enlighten. They’ll learn how to make a bow & arrow, which plants to use for food or medicine or rope & how to make fire from dry grass & sticks. They may not be survival skills they’ll need in later life but they certainly won’t forget the experience.

There are game drives & boat trips to look forward to but also swimming pools & sunbathing decks: everyone needs some downtime on safari. Mealtimes are made easy with children’s menus & some lodges have a child-minding service if you’d like to relax after dinner. And you don’t have to worry about being separated from your children at night: 4-bed family tents are available with en suite bathrooms & electric lighting.

Arguably Africa’s most endearing animals, Meerkats are not very common – even in Botswana – but several camps in the Kalahari’s Makgadikgadi Pans have access to a habituated Meerkat family who provide magical moments of interaction with visitors. Sit with the Meerkats in the early morning & watch them wake up in the soft light – you may even be used by one as a lookout post!

Some Okavango Delta lodges offer the chance to throw a line overboard for catch-&-release fishing on a lazy afternoon. It’s fun & exciting & you don’t have to have any fishing experience (your guide is on hand to help) but if you are a keen angler, then you’ll be interested in going after the Delta’s legendary fighter: the tigerfish.

Head out on foot with local guides for an animal tracking experience. Inspiring & educational, it’s not just about identifying spoor (footprints) of big animals like elephants & antelope but also about recognising dung & burrows plus the signs left behind by the smaller creatures such as insects & reptiles.

Bird watchers will be delighted with Botswana’s abundant birdlife & such is the range of birds & their beauty that even non-birders will be inspired to pick up a pair of binoculars. There are plenty of birds to spot around camp but you’ll see many more on your drives & walks with your guide, from eagles & vultures to giant herons & hornbills.

Most lodges have an informal, family feel so why not be part of it? Let your host give you a tour around camp, pointing out the eco-features that are so important in modern lodge design. Your children can learn how to cook in a bush kitchen, how the camp recycles & reuses waste, & how conservation is used to improve the local community. Maybe finish the day with a game of football with local staff.

The traditional dugout canoe is a classic way to explore the Okavango Delta’s shallow waterways & is available for families with children over the age of six. You sit back in the canoe while an experienced guide propels you along, pushing & steering with a long pole. It’s your chance to see the smaller Delta details – frogs, dragonflies, kingfishers – & perhaps some of its rarer animals like the aquatic sitatunga antelope

Families staying at lodges set in Botswana’s private concessions are able to go on spot-lit night drives with their guide, an activity unavailable in the main parks & reserves. A spotlight reveals a whole new set of animals that wait for the cover of night to emerge: bouncing springhares, tree-leaping bush-babies, small predators like wild cats & giant owls & perhaps larger nocturnal creatures too – porcupines, leopard & hyena.