Venture into the African wetlands with new 360-degree video

Today National Geographic premiers episode one of its new 360-degree video series, “The Okavango Experience.” Over the course of three weeks, three filmmakers joined the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project team in Botswana as they surveyed the wildlife and ecosystems by canoe.

The Okavango Delta is a freshwater wetland in northern Botswana that stretches some 1,200 to 3,000 square miles, depending on the season. It’s one of the most biodiverse regions on the continent, home to elephants, cheetahs, rhinos, endangered wild dogs, and hundreds of species of birds.

Since 2015 National Geographic fellow Steve Boyes, a South African conservation biologist, has been leading a multidisciplinary team of scientists, guides, and support staff through the Okavango River Basin, which stretches from southern Angola, through a narrow strip of Namibia, and into northern Botswana. The goal is to explore the basin’s least known and most inaccessible parts, survey wildlife, and collect data to help inform strategies to conserve the delta for the animals and the more than one million people who rely on it for freshwater.

In this first six-minute episode, watch as zebras come within inches of your face, ride in a canoe as it glides through the wetlands, and sit around the campfire with the expedition team as they plan the next day’s journey.

You can watch it several ways:

• Desktop: Play the video above or watch it on YouTube.
• Mobile: Open the YouTube app and find the video on National Geographic’s channel.
• Oculus: Find the video on the YouTube VR app in the Oculus store.
• Google Daydream: Find the video in the National Geographic app in the Google Play store.

Look for more new episodes dropping on December 18, December 25, and January 1. For photos and more on the Okavango expedition, read “Inside the Mission to Save Africa’s Okavango Delta,” from the November 2017 issue of National Geographic.