Botswana

Botswana is largely occupied by the Kalahari, a sand desert covered with grass and scrub that sustains more life than it appears to. Its counterpoint is the Okavango delta, a river that instead of reaching the sea spills inland and forms a fan of islands, channels and lagoons in the middle of the desert, fed by rains that fell months earlier in the highlands of Angola. In the north, Chobe concentrates in the dry season one of the highest elephant densities on the planet. In the northeast, the Makgadikgadi salt pans, the remains of an immense prehistoric lake, form a dazzling white plain that after the rains fills with shallow water and draws flamingos and herds of zebra. The country has committed to low-volume, high-value tourism.