Activities and rules

Things to do in Chobe National Park

Name: Chobe National Park
Address: Botswana

Chobe gives you two kinds of trip: the riverfront, where you choose between a boat and a vehicle ten minutes from Kasane, and the sand country of Savuti and Linyanti, where you drive yourself or fly in. The park's rules are strict, and the walks and night drives you read about belong to the concessions outside it.

If you only want the answer

Take at least one afternoon boat cruise: in 2026 a three-hour cruise from Kasane costs from BWP 498 a person, plus the P190 park fee that operators' clients pay. Add a game drive or a self-drive along the riverfront, and Savuti if you have a 4x4 and two more nights. Inside the park you may not walk, drive at night, leave the tracks or fish; walks, night drives and mokoro happen in the Linyanti concessions next door.

Inside the park or outside it: what you can do where

Inside Chobe National Park you may game drive, guided or in your own vehicle, take a boat on the river with a licensed operator, and watch birds. The national parks regulations of 2000 ban walking, driving between sunset and sunrise, leaving the designated tracks and fishing in park waters. They do allow guided walks and night drives in areas a park's management plan sets aside for them, but no such area has been published for Chobe, and operators state plainly that there are no night drives or walks inside the park.

Outside the boundary the rules change. The private concessions west of Savuti and Linyanti and the Chobe Enclave offer night drives, guided walks, boating and, at some camps, mokoro. The Kasane and Chobe Forest Reserve lodges enter the park for their drives and cruises, and their guests pay the park fee for each day they go in. Choose the park if the riverfront and Savuti at your own pace are the point; choose a concession camp if walking and night drives matter more.

Chobe boat cruises: who runs them and what they cost

The cruise is the activity Chobe is known for, and it happens on the riverfront: boats leave Kasane's jetties and work the park's waters upstream past Sedudu Island. Chobe Safari Lodge calls its jetty the closest departure point in town, Kalahari Holiday Tours runs joined cruises from its jetty on President Avenue, and Chobe Game Lodge, inside the park, runs four electric boats, three of them fully solar. Pangolin Photo Safaris runs eight-seat photographic boats with camera gimbals and rotating seats, moored below its Kasane hotel.

Kalahari Holiday Tours runs its afternoon cruise from 15:00 to 18:00 and its morning cruise from 09:30 to 12:30; a Kasane booking agent leaves at 15:00 in winter and 15:30 in summer. Every boat in park waters needs a valid permit for its passengers and its own boat fee, and no boat may move between sunset and sunrise, so every cruise is back before dark. On an operator's cruise you pay the client rate of the park fee, P190 a day for non-residents, through the operator. If you self-drove into the park the same morning, keep your Sedudu Gate receipt: one Kasane operator asks for it so you are not charged twice.

Operator	Cruise	Price (2026)	What it includes
Kasane booking agent (chobenationalpark.co.za)	3-hour sunset cruise	BWP 498 per person	Water, soft drinks, snacks, Kasane transfers; park fee of BWP 190 extra; children 4 to 11 half price; minimum 2 adults
Same agent	3-hour deluxe cruise	BWP 789 per person	Adds limited beer, wine and local spirits
Same agent	Full-day cruise, 11:00 to 18:00	BWP 1,958 per person	Buffet lunch and drinks; minimum 4 adults
Kalahari Holiday Tours	Joined afternoon cruise, 3 hours	No price shown online	Soft drinks on board; park fee and alcohol extra

Prices read on 4 October 2026. At P13.5 to the US dollar, BWP 498 is about $37 and the P190 park fee about $14.

Game drives from Kasane

A riverfront game drive from Kasane lasts about three hours and leaves at about 06:00 or 15:00. Kalahari Holiday Tours quoted P730 for two adults (P365 each) for a joined afternoon drive on 6 October 2026, without park fees, and sells a full day from Kasane with a cruise, lunch and a drive for P1,300 a person with the park fee included. The Old House and Thebe River Safaris run three-hour drives but publish no prices.

Chobe Game Lodge is the only permanent lodge on the riverfront inside the park, so its guides set off as soon as the gates open and come back at closing time; it uses electric game vehicles and an all-female guiding team. For everyone else in Kasane, a morning drive and an afternoon cruise is the standard day, and most riverfront lodge packages on our lodges page are built around exactly that.

Operator	Drive	Price (2026)	Notes
Kalahari Holiday Tours	Joined afternoon drive, about 3 hours	P365 per adult	Soft drink and water; park fee extra
Kalahari Holiday Tours	Full day from Kasane: cruise, lunch, drive	P1,300 per person	Park fee included
Kasane booking agent	3-hour drive, 06:00 or 15:00	BWP 498 per person	Minimum 2 adults; park fee extra
Kasane booking agent	Half day, 06:00 to 12:00	BWP 983 per person	Minimum 4 adults; park fee extra
Kasane booking agent	Full day, 08:00 to 18:00	BWP 1,572 per person	Packed lunch; minimum 4 adults; park fee extra

Self-driving in Chobe: the park rules

The rules come from Botswana's National Parks and Game Reserves Regulations of 2000, amended in 2006, which apply to every park and reserve. The officer in charge can vary details by notice, so read the board at Sedudu, Ngoma, Ghoha or Mababe when you arrive. At the gate you pay in pula cash: P270 per person per day for non-residents, P115 for a foreign-registered vehicle and P30 for a Botswana-registered or hired one, counted per calendar day including the day you leave. A day visit to the riverfront needs no booking; staying overnight needs a confirmed campsite or lodge reservation.

Gate hours: 06:00 to 18:30 from 1 April to 30 September, 05:30 to 19:00 from 1 October to 31 March. Outside those hours you must be out of the park or inside a licensed campsite or lodge.
No driving between sunset and sunrise, apart from approved guided night drives in a designated area, and no such area has been published for Chobe.
Speed limit 40 km/h inside the park and 80 km/h on the tarred A33 between Kasane and Ngoma, a transit road you may drive without park fees as long as you stay on it.
No driving off a designated road or track; the officer in charge can sign tracks as 4x4 only.
No walking or leaving the vehicle except at facilities, in an emergency such as a breakdown or loss of traction, or with written authorisation. When you do step out: a clear view, at least 100 m from any dangerous animal and no more than 25 m from the vehicle.
No riding on the roof or roof rack, no swimming, and no driving that harasses animals or disturbs other visitors.
No fishing in park waters.
Under the Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act, most offences carry a fine of up to P2,000 and two years in prison; killing or capturing an animal in a park, P10,000 and seven years.

You may read that the riverfront runs a one-way loop, or that self-drivers are limited to set time slots there. No DWNP notice of either was found.

Fishing on the Chobe: outside the park, and never in January or February

You cannot fish inside Chobe National Park: the regulations ban fishing in park waters except in areas set aside for neighbouring communities. Kasane's fishing trips go outside the park instead. Kalahari Holiday Tours fishes the Chobe outside the park boundary and near the bridge on both the Chobe and the Zambezi, and Chobe Safari Lodge arranges tigerfish trips on the Kasai channel in Namibia.

Botswana's open season runs from 1 March to 31 December, so recreational fishing is closed nationally in January and February. You need a licence from any DWNP office. Applicants must be 18 or over, non-citizens need a certified copy of their passport and, to fish from a camp or lodge, a letter from it, and the licence takes about two hours to issue.

Houseboats on the Chobe

The houseboats that cruise the Chobe opposite the park are based on the Namibian bank, with the park as the far shore, so you cross into Namibia to board and need your passport. Pangolin Photo Safaris' new Pangolin Voyager, which its operator describes as the first solar-powered all-aluminium houseboat on the continent, has five cabins, cruises at about 4 to 5 km/h with an eight-seat photo boat alongside, and is sold in packages: seven days from $5,495 per person sharing, March to November.

The Zambezi Queen Collection runs the Zambezi Queen and the Chobe Princess boats. A reseller lists two nights on the Zambezi Queen from ZAR 27,774 per person sharing in January and February 2026 and ZAR 34,549 from March to November, with water-based game viewing included and game drives in the park extra. Choose a houseboat if you want the river at dawn and dusk without a daily commute; skip it if Savuti or a land-based self-drive is your priority.

Victoria Falls as a day trip from Kasane

Victoria Falls town is about 95 km from Kasane by road, through the Kazungula road border with Zimbabwe, which the Botswana side keeps open from 06:00 to 20:00; Chobe Safari Lodge gives the drive as 90 km. Kalahari Holiday Tours sells guided and unguided day trips to Victoria Falls and a day trip to Livingstone in Zambia, which crosses the Kazungula Bridge (border open 06:00 to 22:00). A Kasane booking agent lists a one-day Victoria Falls tour from USD 90. Mack Air's scheduled shuttle flies from Kasane at 11:00 and lands at Victoria Falls at 11:20, returning at 12:00, on a page last dated 2025.

The day trip also works in reverse. Zambia's KAZA UNIVISA, USD 50, covers visitors staying in Zambia or Zimbabwe who make day trips into Botswana through the Kazungula borders, so a Victoria Falls stay can include a day on the Chobe. Botswana does not issue the UNIVISA, and whether you need a Botswana visa depends on your passport.

Night drives, walks and mokoro in the Linyanti concessions

What the park forbids happens beyond its western boundary. Expert Africa describes the Linyanti concession camps offering guided day and night drives, walking safaris and seasonal boating, and the Linyanti Enclave camps offering night drives, walks and mokoro trips. Wilderness lists game drives, birding, a sleep-out deck and a seasonal nature walk at Wilderness Savuti, and drives, a barge, boating and catch-and-release fishing at DumaTau.

Mokoro is a concession activity: Linyanti Bush Camp offers seasonal mokoro excursions and Linyanti Expeditions runs them in the wet season, while no mokoro trips run in the park's own Linyanti section. The price of the extra freedom is a fly-in rate, from $1,043 per person per night at Wilderness Savuti in the January to March 2027 green season to $4,327 at DumaTau in the 2026 peak, both on the operator's own site.

Savuti rock paintings at the Gubatsa Hills

The rock paintings in the hills near Savuti were first described in print in 1969, in Botswana Notes and Records, which credits an earlier report as the first record and notes that the nearest known paintings were at Tsodilo, about 150 miles to the west. Savute Safari Lodge runs excursions to the Gubatsa Hills paintings, and Ghoha Hills Savuti Lodge offers a climb to rock paintings in what it calls the Bushman Hills. Their age and their makers have not been established in a published source.

The national parks Act prohibits damaging or disturbing any object of archaeological or historical interest in a park. Because walking is restricted, ask the DWNP office at Savuti before you leave your vehicle to reach the paintings on your own.

Sedudu Island, the Kazungula Bridge and village visits

Sedudu Island, opposite Kasane, is a standard stop on riverfront cruises, and puku and lechwe are often seen on its grass. It is also the island the International Court of Justice ruled part of Botswana in 1999; our history page has the story. Chobe Safari Lodge runs a boat trip under the Kazungula Bridge, the 923 m road bridge between Botswana and Zambia that opened on 10 May 2021.

For a cultural visit, the Kasane booking agent sells a two-hour village tour on Impalila Island in Namibia, by boat from Kasane, at BWP 852 a person in 2026. Chobe Safari Lodge lists village tours and keeps a small museum on the stories of the Chobe region, and Chobe Game Lodge runs back-of-house eco tours.

Sources

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