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Month by month

Chobe in January

January is the wettest month at the middle of the park, 166 mm over 21 days, and the one month when nearly everything in Chobe points away from the river: the pans are full, the zebra are at Nxai Pan and the Zambezi flood has not yet reached the Chobe.

If you only want the answer

January is for birders, tight budgets and drivers who are comfortable in mud. Expect 166 mm of rain over 21 days, afternoons of 29.7°C, game scattered through the interior and green-season lodge rates; Nogatsaa Pans lodge is closed and fishing is closed nationally.

January weather: the wettest month in Chobe

The thirty-year model normals for the middle of the park put January at the top of the rain calendar: 166 mm across 21 rain days, afternoons of 29.7°C and nights that stay around 21°C. Rain on two days in three is the honest planning figure. The river does not follow the sky: the Zambezi flood that will fill the Chobe floodplain only reaches the wetlands upstream at the end of February, so in January the riverfront is green but the water is low.

For game viewing the arithmetic is unhelpful. Every interior pan holds water, the elephants and buffalo are spread through the woodland, and the zebra that graze the Chobe floodplain in the dry season left for Nxai Pan around December; the collared animals in the migration study stayed there for about ten weeks. What January gives instead is the birding year at full volume, with Palearctic migrants in residence and a park list that runs past 450 species.

What the Savuti and Nogatsaa tracks are doing

This is the month the clay matters most. The floor of the Mababe Depression around the Savuti marsh is heavy black-cotton clay that turns to grease when wet, and SafariBookings warns that some Savuti trails may be impassable in the wet season. At Mababe Gate, staff advise whether to take the Marsh Road or the Sand Ridge Road. Nogatsaa's pans sit on the same kind of soil, and Nogatsaa Pans Chobe Lodge is closed from 1 January to 31 March for the rains.

Gate hours run 05:30 to 19:00 through the summer months. The riverfront tracks from Sedudu Gate stay the reliable choice, and since DWNP publishes no road bulletins, ask at the gate before you head for Savuti.

Rates, fishing and malaria in January

Lodge rates sit at their green-season floor. Ghoha Hills Savuti Lodge charges $636 per person per night from 1 January to 31 March 2026, and Wilderness Savuti, in the Linyanti concession, $1,043 from 6 January to 31 March 2027. Ghoha Hills also runs guided birding departures from 27 January to 1 February 2027. The park fee does not change: P270 per person per day for non-residents.

Recreational fishing is closed nationally in January and February, and fishing is never allowed in park waters. January sits in the middle of the high-risk malaria season, which NaTHNaC sets at October to May for northern Botswana, so arrange antimalarials before you travel.

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