Botswana on a budget
Boats planes roads and water

Recommendations on spending your time and money in Maun

Maun is just the gateway to the Delta, where you park the car and head off into the beauty of the wilderness and it is where you organise everything, there are numerous places to stay some in the town others dotted along the river all will help in organising mokoro trips into the delta.

You can do a day trip but you wont see much, an overnight trip or even 2 or 3 nights will give you a much better experience. There are lots of budget offers for these trips but take my advise, go with a decent operator running from a lodge or office in town, these guys know what they are doing and where to go, it wont be much more expensive but will be a safer, better experience.

If you do have some cash to splash Maun can help you...

There are many lodges inside the delta where you can stay all 4 - 5 star experiences with prices to match but if you can afford it spend a minimum 2 nights and really enjoy the amazing area.

Other ways to see the delta are from the sky, there are pleasure flights, helicopter trips and hot air baloon rides all offer exceptional experiences that you will never forget.

Also you can do day trips/overnight trips into Moremi National Park from Maun.
Visiting Chobe does need a 4wd but again you can go on an organised trip from Maun at reasonable cost and let someone else do the hard work of driving and finding all the animals for you while you snap away with the camera.. take plenty batteries and flash cards!

Spoilt with wildlife and bird viewing it was time to move on

From Maun you can head north in two ways, first is going through Moremi then Savuti national Parks and into Kasane but for that you really need a 4wd vehicle and need to know how to drive it as the 'road' goes from gravel to sand to watery mini lakes, its a stunning route but only for the prepared.
I took the other route, which heads around the west side of the Okavango delta, its longer by distance but has two great advantages first it is on tar road (except for one 30km section of good gravel through a game park) and a bonus for the trip it goes via Namibia.

Before the Namibian section though I filled up with fuel in Maun stocked up on supplies and headed around the Delta and up to Shakawe.