A bicycle safari in Botswana
Explore the Okavango Delta on wheels during a multi-day safari experience

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Most safari operators offer the comfort and security of vehicles that keep you at one remove from the animals you have come to see. Head out into the wilds on a bicycle, however, and you're "just another creature in the bush", said James Stewart in the Financial Times. On one of Aardvark Safaris' multi-day trips in Botswana's Okavango Delta, guests stay in simple, temporary camps, with tin buckets on pulleys for showers, and fires for heat. The route follows hardened elephant trails near the Moremi Game Reserve, on communal land where few other tourists venture. And it takes you to remote places, including waterholes that are inaccessible to 4x4s and too far-flung for most walkers.
The Okavango is one of the world's few inland deltas. From November each year, rain in the Angolan highlands floods south to fill its plains, producing up to 15,000sq km of wetland. Cyclists can explore it in the dry season, from June to October, riding through a wilderness of lagoons, mopane forest and grassy plains, home to lions, leopards, wild dogs and a huge population of elephants. On Aardvark's trips, small groups are accompanied by three guides armed with rifles. There's no "banter" en route – communication is by hand signal, with a raised fist meaning stop, a pinched hand "twirled like a trunk" indicating a nearby elephant, and so on, but guests are given whistles to use if they get lost.
Rather-too-close encounters with wildlife are not unknown: we surprised a bull buffalo ("800kg of muscle and bad temper") on the track, and one of our guides told of being charged by a lion. At such times, "the great drama of safari – hunt or flee – assumes a bell-clanging clarity". But there's plenty of time for calm reflection, too, as when watching zebra rumbling across the plains "beneath a vibrating sky", and guests round off the trip with a two-night stay at a luxury lodge, the Khwai Private Reserve.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A six-night trip costs from £5,450pp, excluding flights; aardvarksafaris.com
Sign up for The Week’s Travel newsletter for destination inspiration and the latest news and trends.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Humanitarian purposes
Cartoons
By The Week Staff Published
-
Magazine printables - September 29, 2023
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - September 29, 2023
By The Week Staff Published
-
Rupert Murdoch steps down: a legacy of power and scandal
Talking Point Lachlan Murdoch succeeds his father as head of media empire
By Sorcha Bradley Published
-
Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance review
The Week Recommends Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition features lives affected by the Atlantic slave trade
By The Week Staff Published
-
Properties of the week: riverside retreats
The Week Recommends Featuring an enchanting mill house in Hampshire and a converted boathouse in Cornwall
By The Week Staff Published
-
Private Lives review: a 'witty' revival of Noël Coward's classic comedy
The Week Recommends Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers play the warring exes in this 'delicious retro treat'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Wilderness review: a soapy drama set in the American southwest
The Week Recommends Amazon series starring Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen is 'full of twists'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Volkswagen ID.5 review: what the car critics say
Feature The ID.4's 'sportier, more stylish twin' – but 'don't believe the hype'
By The Week Staff Published
-
The best sustainable gear
The Week Recommends From a smartwatch and speaker to a laptop and running shoes
By The Week Staff Published
-
Jamaica Inn review: a small patch of Caribbean heaven
The Week Recommends Guests will feel like one of the family at this boutique beach resort in Ocho Rios
By Natasha Langan Published
-
6 exciting homes in college towns
It doesn't hurt to look!
By The Week Staff Published