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Gaborone

Gaborone is Botswana's vibrant capital—a modern, tree-lined city that pulses with African energy without the sprawl of bigger metropolises. Built from scratch in the 1960s, it has grown into a cosmopolitan hub where well-maintained gardens, good restaurants, and a genuine local scene sit alongside contemporary commerce. The city feels like a place that works: safe, walkable in parts, and genuinely welcoming.

CountryBotswana
RegionSouth-East
LanguageEnglish
CurrencyBWP
Where it is
Botswana · South-East

Roughly where Gaborone sits.

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From the magazine

What we wrote about Gaborone

The map tells you where. These pieces tell you when to go, whether the place is for you, and what nobody mentions.

Read the Gaborone guideThe city was designed for twenty thousand people.
01When to go1
In July it rains half a millimetre.

Half a millimetre spread over two-tenths of a rainy day. In January, 94.2 fall. The whole decision of when to come to Gaborone fits in that ratio — and in a second figure that surprises almost everyone: in the driest month the thermometer has dropped to 5.8 degrees below zero.

9 min
02Made for you1
For the traveller who wants a game reserve inside the city.

Six hundred hectares of reserve east of the centre, open since 1988. Another thirty square kilometres ten kilometres to the south. And a 1,287-metre hill you climb in an hour with baboons on the way. This trip does not compete with the Okavango: it proposes something else, far cheaper and without a single night of logistics.

8 min
03Worth knowing1
Twenty-six novels are set in this city.

Between 1998 and 2025, twenty-six novels of a single series set entirely in Gaborone have been published, and by 2009 they had sold more than twenty million copies in English alone. You will probably arrive with a version of the city already assembled in your head. It is worth knowing which part of it exists.

8 min
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