October 22 – 25
Chobe River Cruise (rating: 5/10)
Based on our own experience, you can see a lot more wildlife on a land safari than on a river cruise such as this one. It does provide a nice, different perspective on the habitat of many animals, but the highlight for us was the beautiful sunset near the end of the evening. Make sure to stay aware of your belongings throughout the entire cruise.
Nature Walk (rating: 4.5/10)
This evening activity near the Elephant Sands campsite should have been advertised as a game drive, as we stayed in the Jeeps spying animals for most of the excursion. We did take a half hour to walk around near a watering hole (which was not in use at the time) looking for animal tracks, but our overall impression was that this was a mediocre game drive where we saw lots of elephants but not much else.
Elephant Sands Campsite (rating: 8.5/10)
We had to include this campsite in our country overview for two reasons. First, the buffet dinner is amazing. Second, the site was built very near a watering hole that many elephants visit throughout the day and night. Even better, some elephants wander the extra 100 feet to the campsite’s pool, and we were treated to four of them drinking while we ate just yards away. It’s fun to see massive elephants from a Jeep, but it’s a whole different experience in a setting like this.
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Useful Tips
We can’t stress enough how happy we were with the Acacia tour we did. We bumped into many independent travelers along the way, and there’s no way we would have been able to kick off our world trip navigating Africa on our own. Sign up for the longest Acacia tour you can afford then don’t worry about anything except showing up with the right stuff – you won’t regret it.
