The Caprivi is a tropical area, with high temperatures and much rainfall during the December-to-March rainy season, making it the wettest region of Namibia. The topography is mostly made up of swamps, floodplains, wetlands and woodland.

The region is home to 450 animal species, including elephants, making Caprivi a popular game-watching spot. The wildlife is protected by several nature reserves, such as Bwabwata, Mudumu, Lizauli, West Caprivi Game Park, Mahango Game Reserve, and Mamili National Park; animals travel freely across the unmarked border with Botswana, where the Chobe National Park lies. The strip is also a prime bird-watching area, with almost 70 percent of bird species found in Namibia being recorded here.

In addition to the Zambezi River, the strip also holds the Cuando and Kwando River, which marks the border with Botswana. Caprivi is almost entirely surrounded by foreign countries. Its only domestic border is a short connection in the west with Okavango. In the northwest, it borders the Cuando Cubango Province of Angola. In the north, it borders the Western Province of Zambia. In the south, it borders the North-West District of Botswana. The Namibia-Zambia-Botswana tripoint lies less than 100 meters from the Zimbabwe border and as such Namibia is sometimes erroneously thought to border Zimbabwe.

There are three game parks in the Caprivi region. The Caprivi Game Park is 5,715 square kilometers and extends for about 180 km from the Kavango River in the west to the Kwando River in the east. Deciduous woodlands are dominated by trees such as wild seringa, copalwood and Zambezi teak. While the park is sanctuary to 35 large and numerous small game species, visitors are not likely to see many of these animals as vehicles are restricted to the road between Kavango and Eastern Caprivi. Animals likely to be seen are elephant, roan and kudu, buffalo occur towards the west. As many as 339 bird species have been recorded in west Caprivi. The wild and little visited Mamili National Park is Namibia's equivalent of the Okavango Delta, a watery wonderland of wildlife rich islands, river channels and wetlands. The focal points of the 320km2 national park are Nkasa and Lupala, two large islands in the Kwando/Linyati river.

During the dry season the islands can be reached by road but after the rains 80% of the area becomes flooded, cutting them off from the mainland. Mudumu National Park is a vast 100,959 hectare expanse of dense savannah and mopane woodland with the Kwando River at its western border. The park is home to small populations of sitatunga and red lechwe while spotted neck otter, hippo and crocodile inhabit the waterways. Animals to be encountered are elephant, buffalo, roan, sable, kudu, impala, oribi, zebra, wild dog as well as some 430 species of birds.