Three days in Gaborone: a capital built from nothing, in the country that got it right

Two nights in Botswana's quiet, low-rise capital: a monument to three chiefs who saved the country, giraffe twenty minutes from the government offices, a hill to climb at sunset, and a hilltop museum on the way out.

Copy this itinerary
Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Gaborone
Places
7 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

In 1964 there was a railway siding here and almost nothing else. Bechuanaland had been administered from Mafikeng, which was in South Africa, so when independence came in 1966 the new country had to build itself a capital in about three years. It picked a spot by the Notwane river, laid out a mall and a government enclave, and started.

Sixty years later Gaborone is a low, spread-out, orderly city of half a million people, and Botswana has done something almost nobody in the region managed: multiparty elections since independence with no coup, no civil war, diamond money spent on schools and roads, and one of the highest incomes on the continent. That is the interesting thing here, and it is not in a museum.

Nobody comes to Botswana for its capital. They come for the Okavango and the Kalahari, and Gaborone is where the plane lands. Two nights is honest: enough for the monuments, a game reserve, a hill and a museum, and not so long that you run out.

Highlights

  • The Three Dikgosi Monument, to the chiefs who sailed to London in 1895 and stopped Cecil Rhodes
  • Giraffe and zebra in a reserve twenty minutes from the parliament
  • Kgale Hill at the end of the afternoon, with the whole city and the dam below
  • A craft yard of Botswana weaving and delta basketry, hidden behind a factory wall
  • Mochudi, the old Bakgatla capital, and its museum in a hilltop school

Where to stay

Gaborone, two nights

The city has a centre only in the technical sense. There is a government enclave with the parliament, the ministries and the national assembly, a pedestrian mall beside it, and then a scattering of shopping centres across fifteen kilometres of low suburbs. Most social life happens in those malls, which takes some adjusting to.

It is worth knowing where the country came from. In 1966 Botswana was among the poorest states on earth, with a few kilometres of tarred road and almost no secondary schools. Diamonds were found the following year at Orapa, and unlike most of its neighbours it managed not to squander them.

Readers of a certain series of detective novels will recognise the place names: the same malls, the same roads out to Mochudi, the same reputation for politeness. The books are fiction but the tone of the city is not far off.

Day by day

Day 1 in Gaborone

Three chiefs, a small reserve and a craft yard

Start in the government enclave, which takes half an hour and explains a great deal.

In 1895 three Tswana chiefs travelled to London to ask that their territory be protected by the Crown rather than handed to Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company. They toured Britain, made their case, and won. Botswana exists in something like its present form because of that journey, and the monument to it stands beside the parliament.

Then out to the edge of town, where there is a small game reserve inside the city boundary, and afterwards a craft market that is the best shopping in the country.

  1. 15:00

    Three Dikgosi Monument

    Historic

    Three bronze figures of Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I, the chiefs who went to London in 1895 to keep their country out of Rhodes's hands. Unveiled in 2005 in the government enclave, and the closest thing Gaborone has to a national shrine.

  2. 16:15

    Gaborone Game Reserve

    Other

    A small reserve on the eastern edge of the city, ten minutes from the ministries, which you drive around yourself in an ordinary car. Impala, wildebeest, zebra, warthog, ostrich and a great deal of birdlife. An hour and a half, and a strange thing to have on a capital's doorstep.

  3. 18:30

    Botswana Craft

    Culture

    An unlikely oasis in the middle of an industrial estate: a courtyard of workshops and small shops selling Botswana basketry, weaving, printed cloth and jewellery, with cafes and live music some evenings. The baskets from the delta are the thing to buy and are museum quality.

  4. 20:15

    Caravela

    Eat

    A suburban house turned restaurant, with a Portuguese leaning, good seafood and Mozambican beer, and tables outside under the trees. One of the few places here that is not inside a shopping centre.

With more time: The national assembly and the ministries around the monument are ordinary working buildings you simply walk past, which is itself a comment on how this country runs itself.

Day 2 in Gaborone

A game drive, a garden and the hill above the city

The full day, and the one to book a car for. Everything is south or west of the centre and none of it is more than twenty minutes away.

Start early at the private reserve on the Kgale road, where there are giraffe, rhino, zebra and hippo across a few thousand hectares of bush. Game drives run in the cool of the morning and take about two hours.

The middle of the day goes to the botanical garden, which is small, shaded and holds plants from all six of Botswana's ecological zones, and the late afternoon to the climb everybody in Gaborone does at weekends.

  1. 07:00

    Mokolodi

    Visit

    A private nature reserve of a few thousand hectares south of the city, with giraffe, rhino, kudu, zebra and hippo, guided game drives in the morning and a restaurant under the trees. Book the drive the day before. Two hours in the vehicle, longer if you stay for lunch.

  2. 11:30

    National Botanical Garden

    Nature

    Run by the national museum, and a quiet hour: indigenous plants grouped by the six ecological regions of Botswana, from Kalahari sand veld to delta wetland, with shade, birds and almost nobody else in it.

  3. 16:00

    Kgale Hill

    Nature

    The rock ridge on the southwestern edge of town, 1,287 m at the top, known locally as the Sleeping Giant. The main path takes about an hour up through boulders and baboons, and the reward is the whole city, the dam and the border hills of South Africa. Go late in the day and take water.

  4. 19:00

    Gaborone Yacht Club

    Eat

    Down a dust road beside the dam, with a bar, a terrace and boats on the water. Limited opening hours and simple food, and the best sundowner in Gaborone by a distance. Check it is open before driving out.

With more time: The dam is the city's entire water supply and its level is the thing everybody talks about in a dry year. Walking around parts of the shore is possible, and the birdlife at the northern end is excellent.

Day 3 in Gaborone

North to Mochudi, and out

Forty kilometres north, on the road towards the airport, is Mochudi: the capital of the Bakgatla, a village of several tens of thousands built up a hillside, and a much older place than Gaborone.

The museum sits at the top, in a school building the community paid for and put up themselves in the 1920s, when secondary education in the protectorate was otherwise nonexistent. It holds photographs, documents and the local history, and the view from the terrace is worth the climb on its own.

The airport is then twenty five minutes south, which makes this an easy last morning.

  1. 09:30

    Phuthadikobo Museum

    Culture

    Founded in 1975 in the old hilltop school, with photographs, texts and objects covering the Bakgatla and the region. Small, quiet and run on very little money. Ring ahead if you are coming outside the middle of the week.

  2. 12:30

    Lunch on the way to the airport

    Eat

    There is nothing much to eat in Mochudi itself. Head back towards the city and stop at one of the malls on the northern side, twenty minutes from the terminal.

With more time: The weaving cooperative at Oodi, founded in 1972 by a Swedish refugee from apartheid, is a short detour off the same road and still makes narrative tapestries of village life to order.

Before you go

Getting here

Sir Seretse Khama International Airport is fifteen kilometres north of the centre and mainly served from Johannesburg, which has several flights a day. There are also connections from Cape Town, Harare, Lusaka and Addis Ababa, and domestic flights to Maun and Kasane for anybody going on to the delta.

The land route from Johannesburg is about four hours to the Tlokweng or Pioneer border posts and then twenty minutes more. Long-distance buses run the same way and are cheap.

There is no train service worth planning around. A taxi from the airport into town is a fixed and reasonable fare, less on the way back out.

Getting around

The city sprawls about fifteen kilometres east to west and walking between districts is not practical. Shared white taxis with blue plates run fixed routes for a few pula, and a private cab, locally a special, takes you door to door for a negotiated fare.

Hire a car if you want the game reserves and Mochudi without arranging drivers. Roads are good, signposting is reasonable, and driving is on the left.

Ask for plot numbers and landmarks rather than street addresses. Almost nobody navigates by street name here.

Where to stay and what it costs

The Village and the Extensions, east of the railway, are the pleasant residential districts and where most guesthouses are. Hotels cluster near the malls, which is also where the restaurants are, since Gaborone does very little street life.

Prices are higher than you expect for the region. Botswana is a middle income country with an economy built on diamonds and a currency, the pula, whose name means rain.

Cards work in hotels, malls and better restaurants. Carry some cash for taxis, markets and anywhere out of town.

Safety and practicalities

Botswana is one of the safer countries in Africa and Gaborone is calm by regional standards. The sensible rules are still the usual ones: take a taxi rather than walk after dark, do not use a phone at traffic lights, and keep valuables out of sight in a car.

The dry season from May to August is cool and clear, and cold enough at dawn for a jacket. October is punishingly hot before the rains, and the rains themselves fall from November to March in short violent storms.

Malaria is not a concern in Gaborone, which sits well south of the risk area, but it very much is in the Okavango and Chobe if you are going on.

Gaborone will not overwhelm anybody. It is flat, modern, spread out and quiet, and the sights fit comfortably into two days without any padding.

What makes it worth the stop is the story it sits on top of: a country that was among the poorest in the world in 1966, found diamonds, and then did the boring, difficult, unglamorous thing of governing itself well. Standing on Kgale Hill looking down at it is the best way to take that in.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is Gaborone worth visiting on its own?
Not really, and two nights is the honest answer. It is a comfortable, safe, unhurried city with a handful of genuinely good things in it, and it makes sense as the start or the end of a Botswana trip rather than a destination in itself.
How do I get to the Okavango Delta from here?
By air. Maun is the gateway and there are domestic flights from Gaborone, or you fly in via Johannesburg. Driving is possible but it is around ten hours of very long, straight road.
When should I go?
May to August is dry, clear and cool, and cold at dawn. September and October are extremely hot. The rains from November to March green everything up and bring dramatic afternoon storms.
Do I need a car?
For the second day, yes. Shared taxis handle the city centre and the malls, but Mokolodi, the dam and Mochudi are all much easier with your own vehicle.
Is it expensive?
More than you might expect. Botswana is a middle income country and hotel and restaurant prices in the capital are closer to South African city prices than to the rest of the region. Shared taxis and local food are cheap.