Botswana with Kids
Family travel guide for parents planning with children
Top Family Activities
The best things to do with kids in Botswana.
Chobe River Boat Safari
Chobe River, 08:00: elephants swim trunk-to-tail across the channel while your kids count hippos and crocodiles from the stability of a flat-bottomed boat. The breeze cools everyone, and children can stand, kneel, spin, anything but jump, while the guide turns the morning into a running tally of baby elephants. Parents sip coffee, cameras safe from dust.
Mokoro Trip through Okavango Delta
A pole-propelled mokoro slips through papyrus channels at reed-top height. The guide lifts a water-lily root to reveal a frog the size of a thumbnail. Kingfishers dive inches from the canoe, the splash the only sound. Kids sit eye-to-eye with jacanas and learn that silence is part of the game.
Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery
Gaborone's National Museum trades bush dust for air-conditioning when temperatures soar. Interactive exhibits walk families through Botswana's independence, while the dress-up corner lets kids drape themselves in traditional blankets and headdresses. Taxidermy lions and leopards sit within touching distance, no safety lecture required.
Khama Rhino Sanctuary
At Khama Rhino Sanctuary, rangers lead families on foot, armed escort included, through acacia savanna where white rhinos graze like livestock. The 4,300-hectare reserve is small enough to guarantee sightings, and the education centre lets kids handle de-horned stubs and radio collars to learn how anti-poaching teams work.
Makgadikgadi Salt Pans Sleepout
An overnight on the 3,900-square-mile Makgadikgadi salt pans gives children a white expanse the size of Portugal to sprint across without thorns, snakes or traffic. Guides explain the extinct super-lake that once covered the area, then wheel out a telescope after dark. With zero light pollution, the Milky Way spills across the sky while traditional stories keep young minds awake.
Gaborone Game Reserve
Mokolodi Nature Reserve sits 15 km south of Gaborone and delivers rhinos, giraffes and zebras without a six-hour drive. Arrive jet-lagged or flight-delayed and still give the kids a genuine safari before dinner.
Best Areas for Families
Where to base yourselves for the smoothest family trip.
Kasane clusters on the Chobe River where four countries meet and family-friendly lodges line the waterfront. The town has a private medical clinic, well-stocked supermarkets and Victoria Falls 90 minutes away for an easy side-trip.
Highlights: Sunset river cruises, elephant herds on the floodplain, lodges with triple beds and pizza ovens, English-speaking guides who know dinosaur facts.
Maun keeps its frontier vibe, cowboys and delta pilots in the same pub. Yet offers espresso, cinemas and supermarkets stocking Vegemite. It's the launch pad for mokoro trips, horseback safaris and scenic flights over the Delta.
Highlights: Shoprite sells international cereal, the clinic stocks paediatric rehydration sachets, daily flights connect to Johannesburg, and delta operators line the main road.
Gaborone hands out city comforts when the bush becomes too wild: shopping malls with toy stores, a cinema with popcorn, playgrounds inside restaurants, and the country's best-equipped hospitals.
Highlights: National Museum, three shopping malls, Indian/Chinese/Italian restaurants, fibre-optic Wi-Fi, fenced playgrounds, and private paediatric clinics.
Francistown splits the drive between north and south, gives older kids a look at historic gold-mining shafts and lets parents stock up at the still-authentic main market.
Highlights: Old mine headframes, Tachila Nature Reserve 5 km away, safe residential streets for evening walks, and a Saturday craft market.
Family Dining
Where and how to eat with children.
Botswana's tables lean hard toward meat-heavy traditional dishes. Yet every camp and lodge has quietly learned to feed international palates. Ask for plain pasta or chicken and chips even if they're not listed. The kitchen will oblige. Dinner arrives early, around 6-7 PM, which suits families whose small travelers melt down after sunset.
Dining Tips for Families
- Most menus list 'pap', the maize porridge that tastes like nothing and therefore pleases babies and toddlers.
- Bring the snacks your children recognize. Local chip flavours swing toward chutney or tomato and can taste alien to young tongues.
- Tell the lodge the night before that you need breakfast boxed for dawn game drives; they'll wrap muffins, fruit and juice without fuss.
Kids can watch their meat hiss over open coals while parents linger over beer and conversation. The setting is relaxed enough for wandering feet, and most braai spots have swings or open grass.
Tourist hotels serve burgers, pizzas and sandwiches without apology. High chairs appear on request, kids' menus are printed, and chefs will dodge nuts, gluten or dairy if you ask.
Roadside cafés make perfect lunch halts: vetkoek, chicken and chips, or simple sandwiches arrive fast and cheap, sparing parents the ordeal of a long wait with restless passengers.
Tips by Age Group
Tailored advice for every stage of childhood.
Botswana tests parents of babies and toddlers: blistering heat, scarce shade, and almost no changing tables outside the big towns. Dust creeps into every crease and complicates nappy rash. Malaria meds force hard choices. Yet locals dote on children and will happily bounce your baby while you finish a cold drink.
Challenges: Distances stretch for hours with pit stops few and far between. The sun drains water bottles fast and fine sand invades everything, even teats and formula scoops.
- Bring a portable cot mosquito net as many accommodations lack proper protection
- Pack electrolyte powder as dehydration happens quickly in toddlers
- Accept that game drives might be cut short - guides understand
Children aged 5-12 absorb Botswana's open-air classroom best: old enough to follow safety rules yet young enough to squeal at fresh lion tracks. They puzzle over termite mounds and mimic San click sounds, then astound adults with accurate elephant-behavior commentary.
Learning: School-age minds soak up lessons on predator-prey balance, anti-poaching drones, shrinking delta flows, and San hunting lore told straight by the people who live it.
- Hand each child a laminated wildlife checklist. Ticking off giraffe, jackal and hornbill keeps eyes sharp during lulls.
- Pack small notebooks for drawing animals they see
- Teach them basic camera skills before arriving
Teenagers stumble into passions they never expected, maybe bird photography, maybe anti-poaching tech. Sitting up front on a game vehicle or helping rig a camp shower feeds their hunger for independence while keeping them inside safe lines.
Independence: Teens ride on adult game drives, join night walks, stay up for the Milky Way talk, and learn to pitch a tent. Several lodges set aside 'teen tents' a short stroll from parents for those craving space.
- Let them keep phones for photos, ironically, zero bars nudge them to look up and watch a leopard instead of a screen.
- Suggest they interview guides about village life and school stories. The answers build bridges across cultures.
- Consider a mother-daughter or father-son trip as a rite of passage experience
Practical Logistics
The nuts and bolts of family travel.
A sturdy rental is non-negotiable, public transport simply isn't built for car seats or cranky toddlers. Bring your own seats. Rental desks rarely stock them. Asphalt covers the main arteries. But gravel and sand lie beyond, so high clearance softens the endless kilometres. Internal flights between camps buy back precious hours, though they raise the bill, children under 12 usually fly for less.
Private clinics in Maun and Kasane keep English-speaking doctors on duty. Yet serious trouble means evacuation to South Africa. Pharmacies carry paracetamol and plasters. But pack baby formula and nappies from home, brands differ. Malaria prophylaxis for children is essential in the north. See a travel doctor because some pills are not licensed for small bodies.
Hunt for lodges with swimming pools, shade and water save sanity in 40 °C heat, and insist on family chalets instead of canvas if your children are tiny. Many camps pitch 'family tents' with real beds and en-suite bathrooms. Confirm 24-hour electricity for bottle warmers or nebulisers. A handful of ultra-luxury camps bar under-12s, so read the small print before you pay.
- Wide-brimmed hats with chin straps for dusty game drives
- Multiple swimsuits as pool chlorine is strong and damages fabric quickly
- Fleece jackets for cold morning game drives
- Baby carrier instead of stroller for uneven terrain
- Power bank for long drives when you need to charge tablets
- Reusable water bottles with built-in filters
- Stock up in Maun or Kasane supermarkets before you head bush. Prices are sane and shelves hold cereal, milk and pasta.
- Reserve campsites with pre-pitched tents instead of lodge rooms, facilities are decent and the bill shrinks.
- Time your park visits for April/May or November when national park fees dip.
- Ride local buses between Gaborone, Francistown and Maun, children ride free on a parent's lap.
Family Safety
Keeping your family safe and healthy.
- ! After dark, no child roams camp alone, hyenas and leopards skirt even electrified fences, drawn by the milky scent of bottles.
- ! Keep every child within arm's reach of water's edge; Botswana hosts Nile crocodiles, the continent's deadliest, and they sprint faster than most parents expect.
- ! Reapply sunscreen like a ritual, high altitude and dry air burn tender skin in minutes, not hours.
- ! Make shaking out shoes and T-shirts a sunrise habit. Scorpions and baboon spiders love warm, dark folds.
- ! Carry printed medical records and know blood types, evacuation crews demand them and local files may not follow.
- ! Ignore labels promising 'child-safe' repellents. Use adult-strength DEET in malarial zones, spraying clothes first and skin only if unavoidable.
- ! Keep windows up in parks, baboons thrust long arms into vehicles to snatch crisps, cameras or anything that glints.
Book Family Activities
Top-rated family experiences in Botswana.
Gaborone City Tour (Half Day tour)
Experience Gaborone through eyes of a local. Thank you for trusting us with your Gaborone adventure... During our time together we move around the city with some stop overs and drive through locations
Multiday Tour From Gaborone: 2 day Gaborone Experience
Briefly: Day 1 - Gaborone City tour half day followed by lunch (Half Day) 0900-1400hrs Day 2 - Manyana village visit followed by lunch and a Game drive at Mokolodi nature reserve (game drive is an opt
Around Gaborone Adventure
(Pick up Time: 9am) Enjoy a tour of the Three Chiefs Monument for a History of Botswana. We then drive for 15minutes out of the city for our game drive around a nature reserve where you can spot Eland
No.1 Ladies Detective Agency Literary Tour (Mma Ramotswe Tour)
Take literary tour and visit places where Precious Ramotswe solved some of her cases around Gaborone. Take a drive down to 'Zebra drive', visit the Anglican church where the real Trevor Mwamba was bis
Half Day Tour from Gaborone (Manyana Village Visit)
Looking to take a private guided day trip beyond Gaborone, come and see what a small beautiful village on the outskirts of the city has to offer. We drive down a tarred open road to Manyana, a village
1 Night Madikwe Game Reserve
(Pick up Time: 11am) The only chance you can get to see the Big5 Animals when you are in Gaborone. Just 45minutes drive from Gaborone you will spend the night in a malaria free game reserve, with the
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