Travel to Botswana

Flying to Botswana

Air Botswana (www.airbotswana.co.bw), flies into Gaborone from Harare (Zimbabwe), Cape Town (South Africa) and Lusaka (Zambia). The quickest route from the UK is to fly to Johannesburg with South African Airways (www.flysaa.com) or Virgin Atlantic (www.virgin-atlantic.com) and catch a connecting flight from there. South African Airways also runs direct flights to Johannesburg from the USA.

Airport Guides

Flight times

From London - 14 hours (including stopover); New York - 19 hours (including stopover).

Departure tax

None.

Travelling to Botswana by Rail

Botswana Railways (www.botswanarailways.co.bw) offers an overnight Francistown-Gaborone-Lobatse service that has first class sleepers, business class seats, standard class seats and a buffet car. Departures take place daily, and tickets can be bought from the website. National Railways of Zimbabwe (www.nrz.co.zw) used to operate a weekly service between Botswana and Zimbabwe (Francistown-Bulawayo; journey time - 5 hours 30 minutes but this was suspended in 2016.

Driving to Botswana

Getting to Botswana by boat

Ferry operators

A car ferry operates across the Zambezi River to Zambia.