Chobe National Park

The busiest of national Park in Botswana, having day visitors from Kasane; the obliged sectors make sometimes the visit lesse comlete; river boating is fantastic

We dropped a star only because , having seen the migration in the Masai, Chobe doesn’t quite offer the huge game herds that can been seen on the savannah. However it is still beautiful and, apart from Cheatah we saw everything we wanted to.

Good wildlife but unfortunately no rhinos. Plenty of birds and nice scenery

Lots to see but too many people

We spent two nights near the park at Chobe Bush Lodge which was excellent. We went on a early morning safari drive and an afternoon boat cruise. Others from our group did an afternoon drive as well.
Even though we saw lots of excellent wildlife including two lions stalking some warthogs, it was way too crowded during both the morning drive and the boat cruise. There were often dozens of safari vehicles/boats around a good animal sighting with some vehicles hogging the best spot for ages and we often had to wait. This was mainly for lions (we didn't see anything else really special). And when it came to the sunset part of the cruise, lots of small boats sat in front of our bigger boats spoiling our view - there was plenty of room for them elsewhere. Our boat moved somewhere else to avoid these boats. These experiences spoilt the park for us. We actually saw much more in Kruger and it was less crowded.
However, friends who did the afternoon safari drive said there weren't so many other groups and they had some excellent sightings including the rare wild dog.

We took a mid-day (motored) game drive and still saw lots of animals, including lions. We took a pontoon trip in late afternoon/sunset and were able to see elephants, crocodiles and hippos up close, which was really special.

Lots of hyppo's, elephants and other wildlife (verry close to the hotel)

Day Trip to Chobe National Park

Chobe National Park is worth visiting only for a day if you do not have time for longer visit. It is easy to access and reach from Zambia and Zimbabwe if you happen to spend time either of these countries. You can find real bushes and secluded areas from Botswana, but Chobe is easy to reach and services are great to support your visit. We visited there on May, 2016 and trip was organized by a local travel agency in Zambia. We were a group of 5 people from Zambia and we joined another group from Zimbabwe (6 people). The morning was spend on the river with the guide who's experience and knowledge were excellent to support a very informative drive. We had coffee, cookies and soft drinks onboard, and we saw a lot of animals in the water and on the banks. There were hippos, elephants, crocodiles, lizards and lot of different kind of birds and the scenery itself was exactly the same you can find from public websites. After the pleasant boat ride, we had a lunch break with decent food in one of the lodges were we had an opportunity to fresh up and rest. Afternoon was spent on a game drive and then we had only a group of 5 in the same car. We basically drove the marked roads in the area and again the guide was excellent. We were able to spot a lot of animals and in this area, animals are quite used to vehicles so they are not running away as soon as you spot them. If you get overwhelmed about the scenery on the river, the view from here to the river is even more spectacular with the number of elephants, hippos, giraffes and other animals you could see in the wide area. The highlight of the visit was when we spotted lions - our guide was able to drive very close and that was one of the best experiences on our three week's trip.
When visiting Chobe like this, keep in mind that it is a public park with many other visitors in the same area and there are self-driving tourists, as well. Definitely you find more bush vibe from private parks but for the day trip this was value for the money.

Chobe National Park has much to offer for all.

I visited Chobe National Park as part of a group of 18. We stayed at Chobe Bush Lodge and had our meals there as well. For the three days there, we partook of three game drives and two cruises on the Zambezi River.

Our park ranger drivers were very knowledgeable about the wildlife in the park, including birds (though I am not a birder, some members of our group were). While we did not see leopards on our drives, we did encounter the rest of the 'Big 5' more than once. Our drivers were very cooperative in allowing us sufficient time for taking pictures. Botswana is justifiably well known for its elephants, and we did encounter them on numerous occasions. Lions and Cape buffalo were also seen on a few occasions and hippos in large numbers during our river cruises. We did not encounter much in the way of zebras, wildebeests, or rhinos. I imagine this was due to the type of terrain in the park.

Our accommodations at the lodge were very well appointed and comfortable. We had a wide variety of meal choices available and could choose to eat either at the lodge itself or at the nearby Chobe Safari Lodge.

Weather during our visit could hardly have been better - we had no rain and temperatures during the day were comfortably warm.

We arrived at Chobe Bush Lodge by motor coach, coming from a visit to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls and earlier from South Africa and left by plane from nearby Kasane, flying to Johannesburg and then back to the United States.

Elephants' swimming pool

I stay in CNP in september 2015, during my 16 days tour in Southern Africa with kiboko Adventures.
Chobenationalpark was the very first place where I finally saw wild animals in my life, expecially hippos, my favourite guys. It was an amazing experience, as I was very lucky. In fact during two days and three game drive I saw lions (a family with puppies), Leopard, elephants, hippos, baboons, giraffes, crocs, vultures, marabous and several species of Birds. Our guides allows us to take fantastic pictures, thank you guys! I think the only bad think was the huge Number of vehicles and boats during our game drives. It seemed to stay on a hightway...By the way I came home with Africa in my heart...and I ll come back as soon as possible.

So many elephants! Great guides and it didn't feel too 'touristy' or developed.