Arriving in Botswana
Gaborone, Maun and Kasane are three different arrivals. There is no airport bus, no published taxi tariff, and no Bolt, so the fare is agreed before you get in.
Three arrival points, three different trips
- Sir Seretse Khama International at Gaborone is the capital's airport and the country's administrative front door. It is where the drone registration office is, and it is the least likely place for a safari to start.
- Maun is the gateway to the Okavango Delta. Almost everyone who lands there is connecting onto a light aircraft the same day, which is why the luggage rule below is the one that matters.
- Kasane serves Chobe and sits where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe meet, a short drive from the Kazungula Bridge into Zambia and from the Victoria Falls.
- Air Botswana's own network is Gaborone, Francistown, Maun and Kasane inside the country, plus Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg and Lusaka. Most long-haul travellers connect through Johannesburg.
Two things about the domestic hop
- Non-citizens must use a passport even on a domestic flight. Gaborone to Maun is an internal flight and Air Botswana still wants the passport, not a driving licence.
- Check-in closes 30 minutes before a domestic departure and 45 minutes before an international one from Botswana, an hour if you are starting at OR Tambo or Cape Town. Air Botswana's allowance is 23 kg checked and one 7 kg cabin bag.
There is no airport bus and no published fare
- No transport authority publishes a taxi tariff in Botswana. The Department of Road Transport and Safety issues taxi service permits and its own service page sets a permit fee and no fare, and no operator publishes an airport price list. If a guide quotes you a fixed airport fare, treat it as invented.
- So agree the fare before you get in, and check the driver has change. That is the tourism board's own instruction, and it is the only protection there is.
- A licensed taxi carries a blue number plate. Recognised companies also carry branding and can be booked by phone.
- Do not hail on the street. Global Affairs Canada's advice is to book through your hotel's front desk instead, and to avoid the kombi minibuses altogether.
- Bolt does not operate in Botswana. Its own city list covers Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, and contains no Botswana city. Do not plan an arrival around opening a ride-hailing app.
If you are driving yourself
- Four-wheel drive is needed in the parks and reserves and on anything off the tar. Hire companies cluster at the airports and in the tourist towns.
- There are no passenger trains. Botswana Railways runs freight only, so the road and the light aircraft are the whole network.
The light aircraft into the Delta
One soft bag, 20 kg including your camera gear. Two operators publish it, they disagree on the dimensions, and the tourism board contradicts itself.
The rule the operators actually publish
- One soft-sided bag per passenger, maximum 20 kg, and the 20 kg includes your hand luggage and your camera gear. Mack Air and Ker and Downey's Safari Air, both flying out of Maun, publish the same weight.
- Soft shell only. No wheels and no frames on the ideal bag, although a soft bag with a rigid base, wheels and a collapsible handle is accepted in Botswana. A hard suitcase will not fit the cargo pod of a Cessna 208.
- The two operators give different dimensions. Mack Air publishes 70 cm long by 30 cm wide by 42 cm high; Ker and Downey publishes 65 by 40 by 30. Pack to the smaller of the two and neither will argue.
- Excess luggage can be left in Maun free of charge if your safari starts and ends there. Take the hard case off at Maun rather than at home.
Ignore the tourism board's numbers here
- Botswana Tourism publishes 12 kg for light aircraft on one page and 15 kg plus 5 kg on another. Both are lower than what the operators fly today, and they contradict each other. The operator carrying you is the one whose limit counts, so take the figure from your own booking.
What the flying is like
- Legs run from 20 minute hops between camps to about 90 minutes to Kasane, often shared with other passengers, and the pilot briefs the routing before departure.
- Delays happen and are usually weather or a late international connection. Camps and charter offices reconfirm transfers, which is why the safari operator, not the airline, is who you call.
Veterinary control gates on the road
Cordon fences cut the country into disease control zones. At the gates your vehicle is disinfected and your bags are searched for raw meat and fresh milk.
What the fences are and why you meet them
- The Department of Veterinary Services has fenced Botswana into foot-and-mouth disease control zones, using double cordon fences five metres apart, with a buffalo fence separating the national parks from the vaccination zones.
- The gates between zones are staffed, and you will be stopped. Expect your vehicle to be driven through a disinfectant bath or sprayed by hand, and expect to walk over a disinfected mat.
- Police and defence force officers search vehicles and bags at the gates for prohibited products. This is the Auditor General's own description of how the system works, not a traveller's anecdote.
- Allow time. These are not formalities you can talk your way past, and a self-drive between Maun and the south crosses more than one of them.
What you may not carry across a zone boundary
- The line is "fresh" against "processed", and it is not intuitive. Fresh cloven-hoofed produce is what is controlled: raw or lightly cured meat, unpasteurised milk, soft biltong.
- Processed means thoroughly cooked meat, pasteurised and UHT milk, madila (sour milk), brittle dry biltong (segwapa) and precooked meat products. Those are outside the fresh-product controls.
- Vacuum packing is not processing. The vacuum-packed steak from the supermarket in Maun is still a fresh product, and it is exactly the thing that gets confiscated.
- The simplest rule, and the tourism board's own: do not carry meat or dairy at all as a visitor. The regulations change with each outbreak, and asking the officer at the gate is the right move.
This is live, not historical
- Botswana had FMD outbreaks in more than one control zone in 2026, and the movement controls have been revised repeatedly through the year. The Department of Veterinary Services release of 1 June 2026 expressly supersedes the previous protocols, and a later one will supersede it.
- Which zones are restricted changes. Before a long self-drive, check the current position with the FMD National Emergency Operations Centre on the toll free line 0800 600 130, WhatsApp 77702971, or fmdneoc@gov.bw.
Comments
No comments yet. Share the first one.
Share a tip
Sign in to continue.