TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums Africa Driving in South Africa, Botswana

Digging into Safari planning and have studied numerous websites and ordered several books on Amazon including maps. So, wondering if I could self drive to various parks/camps and then go on drives from there?

In all my travels, I always have anxiety about what driving is like in a foreign country, usually unfounded in modern times as soon as we land and get the car. I've done pretty well in most countries. But I've never been to Africa.

So a few questions:

1) Main roads and highways from Johannesburg to Kruger and into Botswana --- what do they look like (divided highways, good repair, marked exits)?

2) What side of the road do they drive on?

3) Driver behavior -- generally normal? maintain lanes, turn signals, brake lights, etc.

As far as Botswana in particular, I THINK that all the camps there are private, which means that you CAN'T drive into them, as you are trespassing. You can't be on their property unless you are a guest in their camps. And there ARE no roads to get into the camps that we went to in Botswana. The camps in Botswana are oases of civilization in the midst of the African savannah. They get all their supplies, food, everything, flown in by private plane.

As far as Kruger area, we didn't go there. Driving is on the left, I'm pretty sure, but we basically didn't ride in a regular car on a highway except for 2 or 3 short spells in two weeks in southern Africa, so don't really recall.

thanks, we would certainly intend on being paid guests at the camps.

Clearly, the overlanding safaris travel a lot by vehicle.

I'm wondering if the main roads are good enough that I can drive a normal 4x4 from say Kruger to Maun over several days and meet up with camp mgmt at highway exits/rendezvous points to bring us aboard the camps.

Or are the "highways" more like dirt roads full of potholes like my last trip to Haiti.

Thanks, I finished reading your guys' full report. What a great adventure......with some surprises like the flights from hell, and less than great companions at times. That prompts my self drive questions. If we ended up with a grumpy driver for 7 days or less than savory trip companions, w'd be better off in a big SUV driving the big distance by highway and control our destiny and environment until we got to each of the camps.

What little experience we had in S. Africa around JBerg, the roads were good. That and what we could see from the plane. Don't think that for the most part, like Kruger there would be a problem.

Botswana would be a different story I think. While in the camps (so not the same thing at all) you would not call anything we were on a road. Path would be more like it -- except when we were running over small trees and brush with the jeep! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" />

Now there were roads in Botswania, just that outside of the transport from Victoria Falls to the first camp plane ride we never saw any roads.

For the camps that we went to in Botswana, light air transfers were included in the price. There ARE no roads close to them, that's why there are light air transfers. Because there are no roads, it would probably take days and days to drive to them, even if it were safe. You could get hopelessly lost or get tires punctured and be stranded, not to mention the possibility of animal attacks, or get into a swampland, etc. On one SINGLE game drive of a couple of hours, our driver had to change TWO tires because we ran over these horrible sticker thorns which are several inches long and had no more spare tires, so we had to drive on a tire going flat to get back to camp. These are professional drivers who have years of experience and know the area and have walkie talkies to be able to contact the camp in an emergency, plus someone from the camp would come looking if we did not appear back at camp. I really think you would be much safer and better advised to book one of the traveling tent camp excursions than doing it on your own.