The Chobe riverfront near Kasane is the headline. Through the dry season elephants come down to drink and bathe in herds of dozens, buffalo arrive in their hundreds, and the whole spectacle is best watched from the water: an afternoon boat cruise puts you at eye level a few metres from drinking elephants, with hippo, crocodile, and skimmers along the sandbars.

The Savuti marsh, deep inside the park, is the predator country. Its channel has flowed and dried repeatedly over the decades, and its lions are known for hunting elephant — unusual behaviour born of a landscape where water is unreliable and prey is large. Savuti also holds strong numbers of spotted hyena and, in the green season, a zebra migration.

The Linyanti marshes in the northwest are the quietest sector, with big dry-season concentrations of elephant and buffalo and a good chance of wild dog, in an area that sees a fraction of the riverfront's vehicles.

May to October is the season: as the interior pans dry, everything shifts toward permanent water, and the riverfront build-up continues month by month to a peak around September and October. Morning game drives and afternoon river cruises are the standard rhythm, and both are worth doing on the same day since they show different animals.

Practicalities

Kasane sits at the park gate and is around an hour and a half by road from Victoria Falls, which makes the riverfront one of the easiest safari experiences in Africa to bolt onto another trip — a day trip is genuinely worthwhile here in a way it rarely is elsewhere. Savuti and Linyanti are a different proposition: several hours of deep sand by 4x4, or a light aircraft transfer, and worth the effort only if you have nights to give them.