8 Day Highlights Of Botswana & Victoria Falls Overland Tour

We booked a last minute trip with Kalahari Breeze and had an absolutely brilliant time seeing so many amazing animals. Kalahari is a small Botswanan based firm but were extremely professional, courteous and everything worked like clockwork. On our trip we met other travellers who did not know from one day to the next where they were staying as their company kept changing their itinerary, but everything worked perfectly for us. Before we booked Maria responded to all our questions within hours and put together a comprehensive programme. We stayed in 5 different places and had a number of guides and cars and every single connection was on time. One of the advantages of a smaller firm is the personal service and local knowledge. We "wild camped" in the Okavango Delta for two nights run by Kalahari Breeze directly and our guide was from a village only 5 miles away and knew exactly where to find a pride of lions eating and playing, could spot a hyena under a bush at huge distance and found more elephnats than one could reasonably expect to see in a lifetime. We were also able to visit his village and its' school and met some of his family. The other places we stayed in and safari events were run by other locally owned firms and the guides were equally good although only "mid-range" accomodation it was more than adequate and everything was so well co-ordinated by Kalahari Another highlight for us was the night spent sleeping under the stars on the Magkadikgadi Pans and seeing the meerkats on the way there. OVerall i would strongly recommend going with Kalahari Breeze Safaris

Maria and Chris are excellent, informative and responsive. The trip ran extremely smoothly and we loved every minute of our time in Botswana. I’d fully recommend Kalahari breeze if you’re looking for the perfect experience!

We had the most amazing 8 day tour in Botswana that was perfectly organised by Chris and Maria. We went on a diverse range of safaris and stayed in some wonderful places. We were very well taken care of and couldn’t have asked for a better experience!

This has been a difficult review to write. We have been on 4 African safaris and this was our second mobile camping safari in Botswana. We wanted to take our daughter, husband and three children (13, twins age 9) on what we hoped would be an extremely memorable and exciting trip. All of our previous safaris have been excellent and memorable. We chose the mobile safari because we knew what to expect…or so we thought. The beginning in Okavango Delta was wonderful. Then we headed to Moremi. Unfortunately, our tents did not move with us and arrived extremely late. The crew was trying to set up the tents and cook dinner well after dark. We had dinner at 9:30PM. Two of the cots did not come with the tents so two of our group had to sleep on the ground. When we moved to Savute we had a similar issue with the tents arriving quite late but not as late as in Moremi and all the cots arrived. Throughout the bush camping the guide and staff were very good and helpful. They did have problems with wood supply as we needed wood to cook our meals and for the campfire. We did not have many nice campfires. We had ongoing problems with meals. The quality was not as we had hoped. Some meals were good while others were lacking. A 75th birthday dinner was potato soup, mashed potatoes and steak. The cook did make a cake. We requested no steak for our 9 year-old granddaughter over a month before our safari and we were served steak 3 times without any options for her. Breakfasts varied but we had to request eggs or protein for the children before going on our 5-6 hour game drives. No snacks were provided until the last 2 days, we took fruit from the breakfast table. When we returned around 1:00-1:30, most times we were served “English breakfasts consisting of sausage, beans and bread. We were told that Maria was the one who planned the meals. We were given the cost of the safari and we agreed to the charges. We were to go from Maun to Chobe via safari vehicle. Later, Maria suggested that we fly (for an extra charge) from Savute to Chobe because the roads were rough and it was a long drive. We agreed knowing that the drives between the parks were long and rough and the children might be tired. This was decided in the fall, perhaps around November. There were no criteria or mention of luggage until we made our final payment one month before our safari. Maria then said that we had to have duffel bags and they could not have any wheels because of bush plane regulations. Our daughter and family were continuing on to Amsterdam after the safari so needed suitcases. Maria said that they would take the suitcases to Chobe for a fee. We felt we had already paid for the transportation of ourselves to Chobe so felt that even though we were flying, instead of driving, they could drive our suitcases to Chobe. We did not understand why we had to pay extra. There were several other issues but we felt we listed the most important ones. Kalahari Breeze did not live up to our expectations and we feel that their organization was lacking. Maria was challenging during several interactions when discussing planning and implementation of the safari. Usually, when a company has issues such as we mentioned, someone from the company apologizes or recognizes the problem. We never heard anything from Maria or anyone else.

Kalahari Breeze is THE BEST way to go if you want to see the southern Africa. Maria and Chris are truly AMAZING. They were kind, attentive, listened to what I wanted to do and made sure my trip was everything I wanted. One of the best experiences of my life for sure.