Botswana

Travel Botswana on your gap year. Ideas for gap year travel to Botswana.

Botswana gap year - Gap year programmes in Botswana

The country of Botswana, in southern Africa, will be familiar to anyone who has read Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling ‘No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series of novels. The success of the books, with their wonderfully evocative images describing daily life in Botswana as a backdrop to the main story, has led to a recent upsurge of interest in this beautiful country. The majority of Botswana's 1.6 million population is concentrated along its eastern edge. To the west of this area Botswana is predominantly a road-less wilderness, parts of which teem with some of Africa's most incredible wildlife. If you plan to travel around Africa on your gap year and are passionate about wildlife then Botswana will offer plenty of memorable rewards if you visit.

Botswana's capital city, and home to its international airport, is Gabarone. Most travellers in Gabarone are simply passing through en route to one of Botswana's nature reserves. However, if you do find yourself with some time to spare in Gabarone then Botswana's National Museum and Art Gallery is situated there and has some interesting artefacts and exhibits. A good initial place to start exploring the wildlife after you've arrived in Botswana is at the Mokoldi Nature Reserve. Mokoldi is within easy reach of Botswana's capital and protects the full range of Botswana's endangered wildlife - including white rhino, which has been reintroduced from South Africa.

If you want to get more involved with the wildlife during your time in Africa Botswana then consider getting involved in one of Real Gap's Botswana wildlife conservation volunteer projects. The ‘Private Game Farm Conservation Course' gap year programme is located in Botswana's Tuli Territory which is home to numerous species of African wildlife - including crocodile, wildebeest and giraffe. The focus of this programme in Botswana is for participants to learn the skills required to work in game farm management. The course isn't all about attending talks and lectures, and participants are expected to muck in and ‘get their hands dirty' during their time in Botswana. Some of the numerous conservation activities include destroying poachers' snares, building wildlife hides, visiting a Botswana community rhino sanctuary and game capture and relocation. Participants also receive expert local insight and advice on studying Botswana's wildlife - learning about animals' behaviour and how to identify tracks and all manner of Botswana's diverse flora and fauna. If working in wildlife conservation is something you've considered for a future career, or if you're simply fascinated by African wildlife and want to learn more, then this programme in Botswana is ideal.       

In the northwest of Botswana is one of Africa's most renowned areas for viewing wildlife - the Okavango Delta. The Okavango Delta has been described as Botswana's ‘river which never finds the sea' and is the largest inland delta in the world. The delta splits in to a complicated maze of islands, channels and lagoons and is a beautiful sight. The Okavango is also a vast area, occupying 15,000 square kilometres of Botswana, and is home to an extraordinary array of wildlife. Ornithologists are particularly well catered for in this part of Botswana but there are also many of Africa's ‘big hitters' to be found - including elephant, hippo, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra and giraffe.  

East of the Okavango Delta is another stunning setting in which to explore Botswana's wildlife - the Makgadikgadi Pans. Makgadikgadi is actually comprised of two great salt pans and is essentially all that is now left of what was once one vast lake in Botswana. On a hot Botswana day the pans throw up impressive heat mirages which eradicate all sense of direction and space - making for a rather surreal, but nevertheless beautiful, spectacle. Botswana's Nata Wildlife Sanctuary is located at Makgadikgadi, which boasts an amazing range of bird life as well as antelopes and other grassland animals.    

In the far northwest of Botswana the landscape changes from the maze of the Okavango Delta to an expanse of desert. Rising from the middle of this desert is another of Botswana's main places of interest - the four Tsodilo Hills. As Uluru is to aborigines in Australia, the Tsodilo Hills hold great mythological and spiritual significance to Botswana's San people. Nearly 3000 ancient rock paintings have been discovered at well over 200 sites in the Tsodilo Hills. The majority of these fascinating paintings have been attributed to ancestors of the San people still living in southern Africa to this day.

Botswana is a little more off the ‘beaten track' compared to other destinations in Africa. However, an increasing number of travellers are deciding to head to Botswana in order to discover this beautiful part of Africa for themselves. If you're travelling in Africa on your gap year specifically to witness some fantastic wildlife then Botswana  won't leave you disappointed.

Botswana gap year - Gap year programmes in Botswana


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