Arnoud Quanjer Wildlife Photography

The Chobe Riverfront is the Northern part of the Chobe National park which borders the Chobe river. Chobe National Park is situated in the north of Botswana and encompasses 11 700 square kilometres of pristine wilderness. The park contains a variety of habitats: the grassy woodland of Nogatsaa and Tchinga; the Savuti or Mababe Depression in the southwest of the park; the Linyanti and the popular 15 km of riverbank east of Kasane which I refer to as the Chobe Riverfront.

Best time to visit

The best time to visit the Chobe Riverfront is in the dry season. During the dry season a lot of the wildlife in Chobe moves to the Northern part of Chobe to take advantage of the perennial waters of the Chobe river. In the dry season the riverfront is home to an enourmous amount of elephants (35,000). In the dry season large herds of buffalo can be found in the riverfront as well as tsessebe, roan, sable antelope, eland, red lechwe, puku, giraffe and kudu. These animals attract predators and large lion prides are a common sight.

How to get there

Although you'll need a 4x4 to enter the park the Chobe riverfront is probably one of the most accessible parks in Botswana. The entrance to the park is located 5 kilometers from Kasane. You can enjoy the luxury of sleeping in one of the inexpensive lodges in Kasane and still be in the park at sunrise. You can also enter the park from the Western side of the park by driving up from Savuti. A lot of people drive from Maun to Savuti, sleep over at Savuti campsite drive from Savuti to Kasane the next day through the Chobe riverfront. It's a very scenic drive, but make sure that you have two days available for that drive as you won't be able to do it in one day (even though it's only 350km from Maun to Kasane if you go through Chobe). It's very easy to combine a visit to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe with a visit to the Chobe riverfront (like I did). If you want to visit the falls and Chobe then just book a couple of nights in one of Kasane's lodges. You can drive to the falls, spend som time there and do a flight obver the falls and still be back in Kasane in time for dinner. I did just that and stayed at one of Kasane's most popular lodges; Chobe Safari Lodge.  

Game viewing

Game viewing on the Chobe riverfront is mainly about elephants, elephants and more elephants. You will see other animals like buffalo, lechwe, puku and lions but the number of elephants in the Chobe riverfront region is just mindboggling. I drove on Puku Flats one afernoon and looked back at the riverfront. There must have been 350 to 400 elephants drinking from the river, walking back to the woodlands or coming out of the woodlands to drink from the river. The average elephnat group consists of 10 - 12 elephants so I was watching at least 30 elephant groups. The Chobe river is one of the best places in Africa to see elephants mudwallowing and swiming in the river. I stayed at the Chobe riverfront for two days and I will return there sometime soon. It's an awesome park.

Camping on the riverfront

For information on where to camp at the riverfront please check the Ihaha campsite topic.

At the time of writing this article the bookings for Ihaha are being handled by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP). This will most probably change in the near future though as DWNP is outsourcing the management of campgrounds. Check this article for more information.