Best Time to Visit the Okavango Delta: Flood, Game and Prices by Month

The Okavango does the opposite of what you would expect. The water is highest in July, when Maun has had almost no rain since April, and lowest in January, the wettest month of the year. Get that one fact straight and the rest of the planning falls into place.

Why the water is high when the sky is dry

The flood is rain that fell on the Angolan highlands in January and February. It runs down the Cubango and Cuito rivers, crosses Namibia and enters Botswana at Mohembo, at the top of the Panhandle. The river peaks there between mid March and mid May. Then it slows right down. The delta is so flat that the water has only about 60 m to fall between Mohembo and Maun, and it spends months soaking into sand and spreading across floodplains on the way.

The government’s Daily News puts the normal arrival at Boro and Maun, on the southern edge, between mid May and mid June. Across the delta as a whole, levels peak somewhere between June and August.

Treat those dates as an average, not a timetable. In 2019 the Thamalakane River at Maun dried up and most of the mokoro polers at Boro stopped working. The 2022 flood was poor. In 2023 the water only reached the Thamalakane in late July. Then 2025 and 2026 went the other way: Wilderness reported its Vumbura concession mostly under water in June 2025, with levels it had last seen in 2010, and in 2026 heavy rain closed Moremi Game Reserve from 5 to 26 March, before the flood arrived on ground that was already soaked. The road into the reserve reopened in April, and the Third Bridge area was still shut in late May.

So when you ask a camp about dates, ask what the water did there in the last two seasons.

The year, month by month

The climate figures below are for Maun (1961 to 1990 averages). Maun is on the dry southern edge, so read them as a guide.

Month	Average high	Average low	Rain	Water in the delta
January	31.5°C	19.4°C	104 mm	Lowest of the year
February	31.3°C	18.9°C	95 mm	Low
March	31.0°C	17.5°C	81 mm	Rising at Mohembo
April	30.5°C	14.6°C	25 mm	Filling the upper delta
May	27.9°C	9.5°C	5 mm	Spreading south
June	25.2°C	6.2°C	1 mm	High
July	25.4°C	6.2°C	0.5 mm	Peak
August	28.5°C	9.2°C	0 mm	High, starting to drop
September	32.3°C	14.0°C	1 mm	Falling
October	34.6°C	18.5°C	17 mm	Low
November	33.6°C	19.3°C	43 mm	Low
December	32.2°C	19.3°C	81 mm	Low

December to March is the green season. Thunderstorms, tall grass, animals spread out because there is water everywhere, and the fewest visitors. Maun gets about 452 mm of rain a year and 361 mm of it falls in these four months.

April and May are the months people overlook. The rain is nearly over, the bush is still green, and the flood is on its way. May nights drop below 10°C but the days are mild, and many camps have not moved to their top rate yet.

June to August is peak. Dry, clear, cold at dawn (Wilderness recorded mornings starting at about 3°C in June 2025, and that is before the wind on an open vehicle), high water, thin bush. Wild dogs den around now. The Vumbura pack had about eight pups at a den in June 2025.

September and October are for game drives. The water is falling, the pans away from the delta are dry, and animals have to come to what is left. It is also hot. October averages 34.6°C in Maun and Expert Africa warns of days near 40°C. I would take September over October.

November is a gamble: very hot and dry, or the first storms.

Mokoro and boat seasons

This is the question that catches people out, because the answer depends on where the camp is, not only on the month.

Expert Africa’s rule is that the further north and east you are, the more water you are likely to have. The northern reserves (Kwara, Shinde, Vumbura, Duba Plains, Mapula and Jedibe, which are NG12 and NG20 to NG24 on the concession map) have the best access to permanent water. Kwara runs land and water activities all year, and Desert and Delta’s Camp Okavango calls itself a water-based camp in the permanent delta. The reserves south of Jao and Moremi (NG27A, NG29 and NG30) have had much weaker floods in recent years. There is less to do on the water there, and what there is depends on the flood, which Expert Africa puts at its highest from about May to August.

The same goes for the budget mokoro trips out of Maun, which use the Boro channel. They need the flood to arrive, and it normally does so from mid May or June. Book one for April and the water may not be there yet.

If a mokoro is the reason you are going, either pick a camp on permanent water or travel between June and August. And if a camp lists “mokoro (seasonal)”, ask which months it actually ran last year.

Moremi, Khwai or a private concession

They sit side by side and work very differently.

Moremi Game Reserve is the public part, 4,610 km² according to the IUCN. Anyone with a 4x4 and a campsite booking can drive in. The rules are the park’s rules: gates open at sunrise and close at sunset, no night drives, no driving off the tracks, no walking. In the dry months it is as good as anywhere in the delta. In the rains the tracks flood, and March 2026 showed that the whole reserve can close. For a self-drive trip I would stick to June to October.

Khwai is two seperate things on Moremi’s north-eastern edge. The Khwai community concession (NG19, about 300 km²) is open to self-drivers and campers as well as lodge guests. Khwai Private Reserve (NG18, roughly 2,000 km²) is for lodge guests only. Guides in both can drive off-road, go out after dark and take guided walks, none of which Moremi allows. If you are camping there on your own, ask the campsite what applies to you. Mokoro trips on the Khwai River depend on the flood reaching it.

The private concessions around the rest of the delta take lodge guests only, mostly flown in by light aircraft. Off-road driving, night drives and walks are allowed, and you see very few other vehicles. Because you fly in and many camps are on permanent water, these are the places that still work in February when Moremi’s roads are a mess. They are also the dearest of the three.

Our Okavango Delta page lists the concession camps and the Moremi page covers the reserve.

Birds

The IUCN counts 482 bird species in the delta, 24 of them globally threatened. The summer visitors start arriving with the first rain in November, and Expert Africa singles out February as the birding month, when the rain is heavy and the bush thick. If birds are the point of the trip, go between December and March and choose a camp with boats.

Malaria

The delta is in a malaria area. The UK Health Security Agency’s 2026 guidelines rate the northern half of Botswana, including the Okavango, as high risk from October to May and advise antimalarial tablets (atovaquone with proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine). From June to September it rates the risk low and advises bite avoidance only. The US CDC lists Okavango and Ngamiland among the districts with transmission and recommends tablets without naming a season. Both were last checked on 12 October 2026. Ask a travel clinic which applies to you. The peak flood months happen to be the low risk months, which is one more reason they sell out.

What it costs and how early to book

Camp rates follow the water. Camp Okavango and Camp Moremi, two Desert and Delta camps, are listed for 2027 at US$740 per person per night sharing from 6 January to March, US$1,080 in April and from November to early January, and US$1,410 from May to October (agent listing, last checked 12 October 2026). That is nearly double for the same bed. Those rates include meals, drinks other than premium brands, activities and park fees.

Rate seasons and weather seasons do not line up neatly. Those two camps charge the top rate from May right through October, while one Okavango specialist says most camps are not yet at full peak pricing in May. Compare the actual dates on each rate sheet.

On booking, one Okavango specialist advises nine to twelve months ahead for May to August and four to six months for the rest of the year, and says the most wanted camps sell out a full year in advance. Expert Africa calls advance booking essential for July. Camps here are small. Camp Moremi has 12 tents.

If you are driving yourself into Moremi, the daily entry fee for a non-resident adult has been P270 since 1 April 2022 (the ministry’s Revised User Fees schedule, last checked 12 October 2026). A rise was due on 1 April 2026 and the ministry postponed it, by two years according to Gabz FM, so the 2022 fee still applies. The full table is on the Moremi page.

What I would pick

First trip, money not the main worry: July or August, in a private concession on good water, booked a year out. Watching the budget: May, or the first half of September. Self-driving Moremi and Khwai: June to October, and not March. Birds and low rates: January or February, at a fly-in camp on a permanent channel, with tablets.