Camping in Chobe National Park: Ihaha, Savuti, Linyanti and Nogatsaa

Four campsites, three companies, no DWNP bookings

The public campsites inside Chobe National Park belong to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, but DWNP takes no campsite bookings. Each site is run by a private operator with its own diary, rates and payment terms, so a Riverfront night and two Savuti nights mean two companies, two invoices and two confirmations. The table gives the operators' own rates where they publish them and booking-guide figures where they do not, each with its date.

These are the operators' charges only; park entry and the vehicle fee are paid to DWNP at the gate. SKL adds a P10 bed levy per person per day, and its table prices children 8 to 17 at US$25 and 5 to 7 at US$10. A fifth name, Tchinga in the Nogatsaa area, appears in older guides; we found no operator or booking page for it.

Do you need a booking to enter Chobe?

For a day on the Riverfront, no. You drive up to Sedudu Gate, about 7 km from Kasane, or Ngoma Gate in the west, register the names, nationalities and passport numbers of everyone in the vehicle with your plate and intended exit gate, and pay in pula. For a night, yes: every operator and guide says a vehicle staying overnight needs a confirmed campsite or lodge booking, and being anywhere in the park after closing time except a licensed campsite is an offence.

SKL puts it in one line on its conditions of entry: "Entry is permitted only with SKL voucher and DWNP permit." For Savuti and Linyanti you arrive through Ghoha Gate from Kasane or Mababe Gate from Maun, where staff check the voucher, so carry it printed. SKL also asks you to claim the reservation by noon on the day, or prepayment may be forfeited.

What a night costs: the operator's rate plus park fees

Every camping night has two certain layers. The first is the operator's rate, paid when you book: about $40 to $50 at Ihaha, $50 to $70 at Savuti and Linyanti depending on which figure SKL quotes you, and $80 at Nogatsaa. The second is paid at the gate: park entry at P270 per person per day for non-residents and the vehicle fee, P115 a day for a foreign-registered car or P30 for one registered in Botswana, which includes Kasane hire cars.

A third layer may or may not apply. The national tariff carries a DWNP camping fee of P60 per person per night for non-residents, but no operator mentions it, and Nogatsaa's sheet lists only entry and vehicle fees as payable to DWNP. Ask the operator in writing whether the levy is in their rate and carry the pula in case it is not. Entry and vehicle fees run on calendar days including departure day, so three nights at Ihaha for two non-residents in a foreign car comes to about P6,670, roughly $495; the costs page shows the arithmetic.

How to book, step by step

There is no central calendar. It is three companies and some email patience, and it works once you know the order.

• 1. Fix the route: which nights at which site. A common loop is one or two nights at Ihaha, then Savuti, then out through Mababe Gate towards Khwai and Moremi.
• 2. Book as soon as the window opens: availability can be checked about 12 months ahead, and the Stay Botswana listing for Ihaha says sites are often booked a year out for April to October.
• 3. Ihaha: email Kwalate Safaris at kwalatesafari@gmail.com or call +267 686 5551; the office is above FNB in the New Mall, Maun, open 08:00 to 16:30 on weekdays and 08:00 to 14:00 on Saturdays.
• 4. Savuti and Linyanti: book through SKL's online engine at sklcamps.com (it needs a customer account) or email reservations@sklcamps.co.bw. SKL holds a provisional booking for two weeks, takes a 30% non-refundable deposit to confirm it and the balance 60 days before arrival.
• 5. Nogatsaa: email reservations@ghohahills.com. Ghoha Hills takes 50% to confirm and the balance 60 days before; its cancellation fee is 100% from 180 days before arrival, and card payments carry a 3.5% surcharge.
• 6. Ask each operator which DWNP fees you still pay at the gate, and whether the P60 camping levy is included.
• 7. Print every voucher and carry pula cash for the gate. Plan the day backwards from closing time: you must be in camp by 18:30 from April to September and by 19:00 from October to March.

The email, ready to copy

This gives a Chobe campsite operator everything in one message:

"Hello, I would like to book camping at [Ihaha / Savuti / Linyanti / Nogatsaa]. Dates: [arrival] to [departure], [x] nights. Party: [x] adults, [x] children with ages. Vehicles: [x], [type, for example a Hilux with rooftop tent], registered in [country]. Residency for the rate: [non-resident / SADC / Botswana]. Please confirm availability, the total campsite cost, your payment terms, and which Department of Wildlife and National Parks fees we still pay at the gate, including whether the camping levy is in your rate."

Add your route in and out. Operators know which sand stretches and marsh roads are passable in which month, and the black clay around the Savuti marsh is the stretch most likely to change your plan in the rains.

Ihaha: the Riverfront campsite

Ihaha is the only public campsite on the Chobe Riverfront, ten sites about 35 km west of Kasane, and with Chobe Game Lodge one of only two permanent places to sleep on the river inside the park. Kwalate Safaris lists shared ablution blocks with flush toilets, solar-heated showers, water standpipes, a fire pit and braai stand at each site, daily refuse removal and no electricity. No firewood is sold at the site, so buy it in Kasane.

Getting there is a game drive in itself: two and a half to four hours one way from Sedudu Gate along the Riverfront tracks, with ridges of deep, soft sand near Ihaha, so a high-clearance 4x4 is a practical necessity. Choose Ihaha if you want the river at dawn before the Kasane vehicles arrive; skip it if your vehicle or your sand-driving is untested.

Savuti and Linyanti: the SKL sites

Savuti's 14 sites sit near the Savuti marsh in the south-west of the park, about 165 km from Kasane: 93 km of tar to Kachikau, about 40 km of deep sand to Ghoha Gate and about 30 km more to camp. From Maun it is about 200 km and six to seven hours through Mababe Gate. SKL lists ablution blocks with hot and cold showers and flush toilets, and a water standpipe, braai area and fireplace at each site; a maximum of three vehicles may share a site.

Linyanti has five sites on the Linyanti River at the park's north-western edge, reached from Savuti along the Linyanti track. It is the remotest of the four and the one to choose for a quiet river camp; the private concessions next door run night drives and walks that the park does not allow. Check-out at both SKL sites is 10:00.

Nogatsaa: the interior pans

Nogatsaa is the campsite for people who want the park to themselves: six sites in the mopane and clay pans of the interior, which its operator places 80 km south of Kasane. The 2026 rate of US$80 per person covers a site for up to four people and two vehicles, the firewood for the hot-water system, ablutions with hot water, refuse removal and the bed levy, and there is a hide over Kabunga Pan. You bring your own firewood for cooking.

Ghoha Hills tells campers to enter Sedudu Gate by 15:30 at the latest, because the interior tracks are slow. There is no fuel, telephone or internet at the site, and quiet hours run from 20:00 to 06:00. Nogatsaa Pans Lodge next door closes from January to March for the rains, a fair sign of what the clay roads are like then.

Wildlife at the campsites

No campsite in Chobe is fenced. Kwalate says of Ihaha that wild animals often walk through the campsite, and SKL tells campers to stay within the campgrounds because no fences surround them. On the Riverfront that means elephants and buffalo coming down to drink in the dry season, and hippos and crocodiles in the river itself, so keep well back from the water's edge, above all at dusk and after dark.

Savuti's lions are known to scientists for hunting elephants in the late dry season, August to November, and the marsh draws zebra in the rains on their way south to Nxai Pan. Linyanti is hippo and red lechwe country. At Nogatsaa the 2018 dry-season aerial survey recorded elephants in every Nogatsaa stratum and an estimated 92 roan in one of them.

Rules that keep an unfenced camp safe

SKL's conditions of entry for Savuti and Linyanti double as the park's rules for campers, and the other two operators say the same in fewer words.

• Walking in the park is prohibited outside the campsite; stay in your vehicle on the tracks.
• No driving off designated roads, and no more than 40 km/h anywhere in the park.
• No driving or entry outside gate hours: be in camp by closing time.
• Collecting wood in the park is prohibited; bring firewood from Kasane or Maun.
• No generators, and quiet from 18:00 to 06:00 at the SKL sites (20:00 to 06:00 at Nogatsaa).
• No pets, firearms, quad bikes or motorcycles.
• Food, rubbish and cool boxes go in the vehicle at night, and fruit never stays in the tent.
• Carry a torch after dark and keep children within reach at dusk and dawn.

Supplies: Kasane is the supermarket

Buy everything before the gate. Kasane has fuel at the Shell and Puma stations on President Avenue, Spar, Choppies, Shoprite and Woolworths in the same street, and ATMs at the main banks for the pula you will pay at the gate. There is no fuel anywhere inside the park, so fill every tank and jerrycan in Kasane or Maun and carry water and firewood for the whole loop.

Campsite standpipes give water for washing; the operators do not say how it is treated, so drink bottled, boiled or filtered water. Do not wash in the Chobe: it carries schistosomiasis risk, and a peer-reviewed study linked its dry-season E. coli levels to wildlife along the floodplain.

Which campsite suits you

First Chobe camping trip: book Ihaha for one or two nights and use Kasane as your base before and after. The drive is short in kilometres, the facilities are the most complete of the four, and the river is the reason most people come. Add Savuti if your vehicle and recovery gear are up to 70 km of deep sand each way.

Experienced and self-sufficient: Savuti and Linyanti together, then out through Mababe Gate to Khwai and Moremi, is the classic northern traverse, and Nogatsaa is the quiet alternative to the Riverfront for those who want pans and no crowd. Whatever the plan, the diary decides: the sites open about 12 months ahead, and the June to October dates go first.

Sources

• Kwalate Safaris: Ihaha campsite (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• SKL Group of Camps: conditions of entry, rates and booking terms (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• SKL Group of Camps: Savuti and Linyanti campsites (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• Ghoha Hills: Nogatsaa Campsite website rates 2026 (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• SafariFind: Botswana national park fees and campsite rates 2026, 15 July 2026 (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• Ostrich Trails: Chobe National Park, updated 2 July 2025 (checked 4 Oct 2026)
• DWNP fee structure, 2022 First Schedule to the National Parks and Game Reserves Regulations (checked 4 Oct 2026)