Botswana: Bicycle Tour Travel Guide
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by David Mozer
[An introduction and overview to travel in Africa is available by clicking here. If you are look for a bicycle tour to this country, this link might help you.]
The information below may have been extracted from a more comprehensive "Country Supplement" to the book "Bicycling In Africa". For information on these publications click on the links.
Most of Botswana is generally flat and homogeneous and only sparsely populated, with cattle outnumbering people in most areas.
Most of the local cycling that occurs in Botswana is intracity, rather than intercity -- cities and towns of significant size are often long distances apart. With the long distances motorists tend to drive with the pedal-to-the-metal. The are generally willing to give cyclist plenty of rooms, except in the slight congested bigger towns. It is interesting that the Botswana cyclists that are using the highways generally wear florescent orange vests.
Routes
There will always be a few international cyclists going through, but it is unlikely that many people will set out with Botswana as a sole destination. Most of the traffic will be on the main north-south highways. It has enough settlements and provisions along it that it is not to difficult to ride. The road from Francistown/Nata/Kasane is paved. As are the roads from Nata to Maun, Maun to Kasane and the trans-Kalahari highway. All these roads have some long desolate stretches without services, but a properly prepared (think carrying oceans of water) cyclist could make the trip. (But be mindful of the wind.) Both towns are also served by buses several days a week. The road from Maun to Kasane is unpaved and deep sand in places and has no through public transportation and very little private traffic, either. Expect the same conditions on any unpaved roads in the northern and western part of the country.
Links of Interest:
- Africa Guide Botswana
- Bibliography
- Botswana Page
- Languages of Botswana
Across African Sand: Journey of a Witch Doctor's Son-In-Law The heart of the book is a chronicle of a 3000 mile bicycle jaunt through Botswana and Namibia, mostly though sand.
- Basarwa / Khosan / San (Bushman) Culture
Regional Resources:
Mozambique
South Africa
Zambia
Zimbabwe
For current news on Africa and more web sites with country-by-country information go to the link section and click on "Africa: News, Background, Travel."
Africa
Guide Home
IBF's Bibliography:
Africa IBF's Travel Page
IBF's Africa index
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