Gaborone 3-Day Itinerary: Monuments, Kgale Hill and Rhinos

Three days in Gaborone gives you enough time to pair the capital's post-independence story and craft studios with early morning hill scrambles and unhurried wildlife tracking in the surrounding thornveld. Before you arrive, reserve your guided white rhino tracking or game drive at Mokolodi Nature Reserve; see our practical briefing.

Day 1: Three Dikgosi Monument, Main Mall, Seswaa Lunch & The Village

• Morning: begin in the modern Central Business District at the Three Dikgosi Monument to read the story of the 1895 chiefs' mission to London, followed by an espresso on the Masa Centre piazza.
• Late morning: head into the 1960s civic core to see the statue of Sir Seretse Khama at the Government Enclave, then stroll the shaded brick promenade of the pedestrian Main Mall to browse woven Botswana baskets and bookshops.
• Lunch: sit down at an open-air Main Mall kitchen or traditional restaurant for slow-pounded seswaa beef served with tangy ting sorghum porridge, morogo greens and homemade ginger beer.
• Afternoon: check current exhibitions at the National Museum, then drive east into The Village to view contemporary Botswana paintings at Thapong Visual Arts Centre and walk among indigenous aloes and marula trees in the National Botanical Garden.
• Evening: relax over dinner and a sundowner on an outdoor terrace at Riverwalk or in the CBD.

Day 2: Sunrise on Kgale Hill, Gaborone Game Reserve & Sanitas Tea Garden

• Early morning: set off at daybreak to hike Kgale Hill (The Sleeping Giant) while the pink granite is cool, watching chacma baboons along the ridge and looking out over Gaborone Dam from the summit cross.
• Midday: recover with brunch and coffee under the giant nursery trees at Sanitas Tea Garden near the dam wall, browsing indigenous succulents and palms.
• Afternoon: spend three hours driving the woodland and marsh loops of Gaborone Game Reserve right inside the city, stopping at the wooden bird hides to spot kudu, impala, zebra, wildebeest, ostrich and malachite kingfishers.

Day 3: Oodi Weavers in the Morning & Mokolodi Rhinos in the Afternoon

• Morning: drive twenty kilometres north-east past the sacred hill of Lentswe la Baratani to the village cooperative of Oodi Weavers, watching Karakul wool spun and woven by hand into narrative tapestries.
• Afternoon and sunset: head fifteen kilometres south of town to Mokolodi Nature Reserve for a pre-booked guided white rhino tracking walk or open-vehicle bush drive among giraffe, gemsbok and warthog, finishing with a bush braai by the waterhole before returning to your base in central Gaborone.