---
title: Cape & Botswana Flying Safari
date: 2026-06-30T08:00:09Z
modified: 2026-07-16T08:00:56Z
permalink: "https://www.thesafaripartners.com/tour/cape-botswana-flying-safari/"
type: tour
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 333690
travel-style:
  - Group Travel
who:
  - Seasoned Travellers
  - Solo Traveller
when:
  - April
  - December
  - February
  - January
  - March
  - November
  - October
  - September
budget:
  - On a budget
tour-type:
  - Scheduled Tour
featured_image: /wp-content/uploads/2026/06/istock-13877272131.jpg
---

This journey brings together two very different sides of Southern Africa in a single trip: the city, mountains, and coast of Cape Town with the wine country of Franschhoek at the start, then a fly-in safari through three contrasting corners of Botswana, the Okavango Delta, the predator country of Chobe, and the quiet waterways of the Panhandle to finish. You arrive in Cape Town and head straight out to Franschhoek, set in a valley among some of the oldest wine country in the southern hemisphere. The estates sit among the vines with the mountains rising behind them, many pairing their wines with food, and the village carries a French Huguenot heritage that still runs through the cooking and the cellars. A day of touring among the surrounding estates, on the Wine Tram or with a private guide, is an easy, civilised way to begin before you turn back toward the city. From the winelands you come back to Cape Town, set between Table Mountain and the sea. It is a relaxed place to find your feet, with the cableway up the mountain on a clear day, the working harbour and shops of the V&A Waterfront, and the drive out along the peninsula to Cape Point and the penguins at Boulders Beach. The city rewards both sightseeing and simply taking your time. From Cape Town you fly north to Maun and into the Okavango. In my opinion this is the way to do Botswana, moving between camps by light aircraft, with the country opening up beneath you on every leg and no long road days in between. Your first camp is Xakanaxa, in the Moremi Game Reserve at the heart of the Delta. It sits on the Xakanaxa Lagoon, one of the few places in the Delta with permanent water, which lets it run both land and water safaris through the year. Days move between open 4×4 game drives across floodplain and woodland and motorboat trips along the channels, in classic tented-camp surroundings under the riverine trees. You then fly to Savute, on the Savute Channel in Chobe National Park. This is drier, more open country, known for its predators and its large herds of elephant. Game drives run across the Savute Marsh and the surrounding plains, with a side trip to the San rock paintings at the Gubatsa Hills. Savute Safari Lodge was rebuilt in 2024 around the view of the channel, with a sunken hide at the waterhole that brings you level with the game as it comes to drink. The trip closes at Nxamaseri, on a wooded island in the Okavango Panhandle, the deep permanent water at the top of the Delta. This is a slower, water-based finish rather than more big game. You explore the channels by boat and by mokoro, with some of the best birding and fishing in Botswana, and the option of a guided trip to the Tsodilo Hills and their ancient San rock art. It is the quiet counterpoint to the game-viewing camps that come before it. Taken together, the trip moves from the wine country and city of the Cape into a fly-in safari across three contrasting parts of Botswana, the Delta, the predator country of Chobe, and the waterways of the Panhandle. Each leg stands on its own, and it is the range across them, city to wine to Delta to predator country to quiet water, that makes the whole work.