Travel to Chobe Savuti Marshes

a miraculous water source, surrounded by desiccated woodlands

Since the times of the earliest European explorers, Chobe Savuti has been renowned for the extraordinary concentrations of wildlife that gather here during the Jun-Oct dry season.

At this time of year, the vast mopane woodlands that surround the area become very desiccated, almost post-apocalyptic, and the animals are obliged to converge on the few remaining sources of water.

For most this means heading far off to the north and west to the Linyanti and Chobe rivers.

However, right at the heart of this extremely dry landscape lies the miracle that is the Savuti Marshes.

At the start of the dry season, usually during May, the annual floodwaters arrive from Angola into the Kwando and Linyanti river systems to the west. This flood is prevented from continuing east by a low fault line and instead the water is forced north to join the Chobe River and on into the Zambezi.

But there is a gap in this fault line, an apparently insignificant break of around eighty metres, through which the waters are sometimes able to spill.

These waters wind their way down the ephemeral Savuti Channel, around 40 km, until they reach an open grassland, across which they spread and feed on down into the marshes, creating a unique wetland area, surrounded on all sides by endless dry forest.

In the years when the flood is good, the concentrations of animals around the marshes can be spectacular, with large breeding herds of elephants and enormous bulls, significant congregations of buffaloes, wildebeests and zebras, plus a wide range of other herbivores. The area also has a particular reputation for predators, especially lions, leopards and wild-dogs. It is not unheard of to see twenty or more different lions and a handful of leopards in a single day.

However, this flood is not reliable, it tends to happen for several years and then go maybe a decade or more without. Arranging a trip long in advance can therefore be a bit of a gamble.

We generally recommend against including the Savute Marshes area in a trip, mainly due to the traffic issues, but also because of the unpredictability of the flood.

Seasonality

Like most areas in Botswana, safari in the Chobe Savute Marshes is very seasonal and careful planning is essential. However, in this particular area, there is, arguably, no good time to visit.

Through the Nov-Apr hot wet season, the wildlife is widely dispersed and inaccessible in the vast dry forests, sustained by rainwater pools. Vehicle traffic is reasonably low, except for the main holiday seasons. Road conditions can become very challenging for overlanders.

At the end of the dry season, in Nov-Dec, herbivores such as zebras and wildebeest start to have their young, which can become quite a spectacle, as the various predators take advantage of the easy pickings.

During the May-Jul early dry season, floodwaters in the Savute Marshes act as a magnet for wildlife. Unfortunately, this surge in activity is accompanied by extremely high vehicle traffic.

Unlike the Okavango Delta, the Savute Marshes rarely receive a heavy inundation of floodwater from Angola, so they tend to dry out much earlier, during Aug-Oct, causing the wildlife to head off to the Chobe Waterfront and Linyanti Waterfront. Despite this, vehicle traffic remains uncomfortably high.

Getting there

If you specifically want to include the Savute Marshes in your safari, then we usually recommend inserting it between Victoria Falls and Okavango Delta. On the way in, you drive from Victoria Falls or Livingstone down to Kasane Airport and then hop down to Chobe by light aircraft. On the way out, you hop by air direct to the next camp.

the highly seasonal floods attract wildlife in May-Nov