Gaborone: Botswana’s easy-going capital

Gaborone: 3-Hour Historical City Tour

The most-reviewed tour in Gaborone and the best first morning in the city. A local guide drives you between the capital’s landmarks — the Three Dikgosi Monument, Parliament, Main Mall and the older neighbourhoods — explaining how a village by the Notwane River became the “diamond city” in sixty years, with a few traditional snacks to try on the way.

• Three Dikgosi Monument and the new CBD
• Parliament, the Government Enclave and Main Mall
• Tastes of local food along the way

Safari Game Drive and Gaborone City Tour

Gaborone is one of the few capitals with a game reserve inside the city. This tour pairs a guided drive through it — expect zebra, wildebeest, kudu, impala, warthog and plenty of birds — with the main sights of the capital, so you get wildlife and history in a single six-hour outing at a fair price.

• Guided drive in the Gaborone Game Reserve
• Zebra, wildebeest, antelope and ostrich inside the city limits
• City landmarks on the same outing

Around Gaborone Adventure

The full-day sampler: the Three Dikgosi Monument and the city in the morning, a game drive in Mokolodi Nature Reserve — the hilly private reserve south of town known for giraffe, zebra and white rhino — and a cruise to look for crocodiles. It is the most complete single day you can book in Gaborone.

• Game drive in Mokolodi Nature Reserve
• Three Dikgosi Monument and city highlights
• Boat cruise to look for crocodiles

No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Literary Tour: Gaborone

Alexander McCall Smith’s novels have sent more visitors to Gaborone than any advertising campaign. This guided tour follows Mma Ramotswe around town — her house on Zebra Drive, Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, the foot of Kgale Hill — and shows how closely the books follow the real city. Perfect scores so far, from a small number of reviews.

• Zebra Drive, Tlokweng Road and Kgale Hill
• The Gaborone of Mma Precious Ramotswe
• Bush tea and stories from the books

Gaborone: Private Historical City Tour

A longer, slower version of the city tour: six hours with a private guide, covering the Government Enclave, the Three Dikgosi Monument and the neighbourhoods in between, with stops to taste traditional food. At the listed starting price it is the cheapest way to have a guide to yourself for most of a day.

• Government Enclave and Three Dikgosi Monument
• Traditional food tasting and light snacks
• Private guide and vehicle

Manyana Village Visit from Gaborone + Rock Paintings

A half-day drive to the village of Manyana, home to the only well-known rock paintings in southern Botswana — giraffe, antelope and human figures on a sandstone overhang — and to the huge fig tree under which the missionary David Livingstone is said to have preached and taught in the 1840s. A neat introduction to the country beyond the capital.

• Rock paintings at Manyana, a national monument
• The fig tree where David Livingstone taught
• A look at village life south-west of the city

2-Day City Tour, Safari Game Drive & Boat Cruise

Two guided days that cover nearly everything in this guide: the city, the Gaborone Game Reserve and Old Naledi on day one, then Mokolodi Nature Reserve and a boat cruise on day two. Accommodation is not part of the tour, so you keep your own hotel — and the price per day is the best value among the longer options.

• Gaborone Game Reserve and the National Museum area
• Old Naledi, the city’s oldest township
• Mokolodi Nature Reserve and a boat cruise

Art & Craft Tour: Villages around Gaborone

A day in the villages that ring Gaborone, where much of the country’s weaving and pottery is actually made. You visit four of them, watch the craftspeople at work, have the chance to buy direct and eat lunch at a local restaurant. It is the easy way to reach places such as Oodi without hiring a car.

• Four craft villages around the capital
• Meet weavers and potters and buy direct
• Lunch at a local restaurant

Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Rhino and giraffe fifteen minutes from the city

A non-profit private reserve in the rocky hills just south of Gaborone, founded in 1994. Game drives find giraffe, zebra, kudu, wildebeest and white rhino, and guided rhino and giraffe tracking on foot is the experience people remember. There is a restaurant, chalets and a campsite, so it also works as a night away from town.

Gaborone Game Reserve

A game drive inside the city limits

A small fenced reserve on the eastern edge of the city along the Notwane River, opened in 1988. You can drive its gravel loops in an ordinary car and expect zebra, eland, kudu, impala, wildebeest, warthog, ostrich and vervet monkeys, with bird hides and picnic sites. It is the cheapest and quickest wildlife fix in Botswana.

Kgale Hill & Gaborone Dam

The Sleeping Giant above the city

The 1,287-metre hill on the south-western edge of Gaborone is the city’s favourite hike: roughly an hour up for a view over the whole capital, the bushveld and Gaborone Dam. The dam below, the city’s reservoir since the 1960s, has a yacht club and quiet shoreline viewpoints, and Kgale is where Mma Ramotswe’s detective agency sits in the novels.

Three Dikgosi Monument & the CBD

Three chiefs who kept a country

Bronze statues, 5.4 metres high, of Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I — the chiefs who sailed to Britain in 1895 to keep their lands out of Cecil Rhodes’s hands. Unveiled in 2005, the monument stands in the new Central Business District, a short walk from the High Court, Parliament and the Government Enclave.

Manyana Rock Paintings & Kolobeng

Rock art and Livingstone’s Botswana

At Manyana, about 50 km south-west of the capital, a sandstone cliff shelters ochre paintings of giraffe, antelope and human figures, attributed to the San. Nearby stands the great fig tree where David Livingstone preached, and on the way back are the ruins of his Kolobeng mission, where he lived from 1847 to 1852.

Mochudi & Phuthadikobo Museum

The Bakgatla capital on its hill

Mochudi, about 40 km north of Gaborone, has been the capital of the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela since 1871 and is one of the most attractive traditional towns in the south. On Phuthadikobo Hill, the Cape Dutch-style school built by the community in the early 1920s now houses a museum of Bakgatla history, with wide views over the town and its royal kgotla.