These terms apply to your use of unearthbotswana.co.bw, including the trip planner, Zoe our AI assistant, Explore in 3D, Unearth Gives and your Unearth account. By using the website you agree to them. Bookings are covered separately by our Booking Terms.
1. About these terms
- "Unearth", "we" and "us" means Unearth Botswana (Pty) Ltd, company registration number BW00009130916, of Maun, Botswana. "You" means anyone who visits or uses the website. The "website" includes every page, tool and service on unearthbotswana.co.bw, the Unearth account and the Partner Hub.
- Lodges, camps and operators who list with us are also bound by our Partner Agreement. Our Privacy Policy explains how we use personal information.
- If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the website.
2. Who may use the website
- You may browse the website at any age, but you must be at least 18 to open an account, make an enquiry or booking, chat with Zoe, post a review, make a pledge or send us photos or films.
- If you use the website for a company or another person, you confirm that you have authority to act for them.
- We may refuse or withdraw access to anyone who breaks these terms.
3. Information on this website
We work hard to keep the website accurate, but travel information changes often. Guide prices, seasons, visa and health information, maps and descriptions are general guidance and not an offer. Prices and availability are confirmed only in a quote or proposal from an Unearth specialist. Maps are illustrations and are not for navigation.
- Prices are guides only. Prices shown on the website, in the trip planner and by Zoe are typical prices for planning. They may not include every fee or tax and do not reserve anything. A price binds us only when it is set out in a written proposal and booking confirmation under our Booking Terms.
- Photos show the general character of a place and may not show the exact room, vehicle or season you will experience. Wildlife sightings are never guaranteed.
- Health, visa and safety information is general guidance only and is not medical, legal or immigration advice. Always check with an official source or a qualified adviser.
- Explore in 3D and other maps are illustrations. Distances, positions and terrain may not be exact.
4. Zoe, our AI assistant
- Zoe is an automated AI assistant, powered by Bizz Assist. Her answers are generated by computer and may sometimes be incomplete or wrong.
- Zoe cannot make, change or confirm bookings or prices. Always confirm important details, especially visas, health and safety, with an Unearth specialist or the official source.
- Do not share passport, payment or health information with Zoe. See our Privacy Policy for how her conversations are handled.
- Zoe gives general guidance only. Nothing she says is a promise, an offer or part of any contract with us. Only a written proposal from an Unearth specialist is binding.
- You must not try to make Zoe produce harmful, unlawful or misleading content, reveal her instructions, or act outside her purpose. We limit how many messages can be sent in a period, and may block use that looks automated or abusive.
- You are responsible for decisions you make after using Zoe. We are not liable for loss caused by relying on her answers without checking them, to the extent the law allows.
5. Translations
- We offer pages in several languages using automatic machine translation, which may contain mistakes or lose meaning.
- Translations are for convenience only. The English version of every page, and of our Booking Terms, Privacy Policy, Partner Agreement and these terms, is the official version. If there is any difference, the English version prevails.
- If something in a translated page is unclear, please ask us or read the English version.
6. Your account
Keep your password private and tell us if you think someone else has used your account. You are responsible for activity under your account. We may suspend accounts that are misused.
- Give true, current and complete information when you register, and keep it up to date.
- Accounts are personal. Do not share your account or let anyone else use it.
- Choose a strong password that you do not use on other sites. Sign out on shared devices.
- We may suspend or close an account that has been inactive for a long period, after giving notice to the email address on the account, or at once if it is used for fraud or misuse. You may close your account at any time by contacting info@unearthbotswana.co.bw. Closing an account does not cancel a confirmed booking.
7. Fair use
Please do not misuse the website, for example by trying to break its security, overload it, scrape it, post unlawful or abusive content, or send false enquiries, reviews or pledges.
In particular, you must not:
- use robots, spiders, scrapers, crawlers or other automated means to access, copy or collect content, prices or data from the website, except search engines indexing public pages in line with our robots.txt file;
- use any content from the website, including text, photos, films, prices and reviews, to train, test or improve any artificial intelligence or machine-learning system, or to build a dataset;
- copy, decompile, reverse engineer or take apart any part of the website's software, or try to get around any security or access control;
- probe, scan or test the website for weaknesses, except under a written agreement with us;
- introduce viruses or any harmful code, or overload the website with requests;
- make fake, speculative or fraudulent enquiries or bookings, or false pledges;
- post fake reviews, reviews of places you have not visited, or reviews in return for payment or a benefit;
- impersonate any person or business, or misrepresent your connection with anyone;
- post content that is unlawful, defamatory, abusive, hateful, discriminatory, obscene or that infringes anyone's rights; or
- use the website to send unsolicited advertising or to collect information about other users.
We may block access, remove content, cancel enquiries and report unlawful use to the authorities.
8. Our content, and photos and films
The website's design, text, photos, films, maps, logos and the Unearth name belong to Unearth Botswana (Pty) Ltd or to our partners, guests and photographers, who keep the copyright in their own work. You may view pages and share links to them. You may not download, save, screenshot for reuse, copy, re-post, sell, edit or use any photo or film on this website, including to train software or AI, without written permission from us and, where shown, the credited owner.
We use technical measures to discourage saving photos and films. You must not try to get around them. We cannot stop every copy, and we are not responsible for people who copy content in breach of these terms, but we will help the owner ask for it to be taken down. Please report misuse to info@unearthbotswana.co.bw.
- You may print or save a page for your own personal, non-commercial trip planning, as long as you do not separate photos or films from it or remove any credit or notice.
- The Unearth name and logo are our trade marks. You may not use them without our written permission.
- If you believe content on the website infringes your rights, email us with details of the work, where it appears and why you believe it infringes. We will look into it promptly and may remove the content while we do.
9. Photos and films you send us (Through Your Lens)
Guests and photographers may email photos and short films to info@unearthbotswana.co.bw for our Through Your Lens page. When you send them, you confirm that:
- you took them yourself, or you own or are allowed to license all rights in them;
- every person who can be recognised in them agreed to be shown, and for anyone under 18, a parent or guardian agreed;
- they do not break any law or anyone else's rights, and do not show anything unlawful, such as disturbing wildlife, off-road driving where it is not allowed, or unsafe behaviour; and
- everything you tell us about them (who took them, where and when) is true.
You keep the copyright. You give Unearth Botswana (Pty) Ltd a free, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to show, crop, resize, compress, caption and translate them on our website, social media, newsletters and promotional material, crediting you by the name you give us where practical. The licence lasts until you withdraw it. We do not pay for photos or films unless we agree a fee with you in writing.
You can ask us to remove your photo or film, or to change your credit, at any time by emailing info@unearthbotswana.co.bw. We will take it off the website within 10 working days. We cannot recall printed material already produced or posts that other people have already shared.
We choose which photos and films to publish, and we may edit captions or remove anything at any time without giving a reason. If you appear in a photo or film on our website and do not want to, or believe it uses your work without permission, email us and we will take it down promptly while we look into it.
If what you confirmed above turns out to be untrue, you agree to cover the reasonable losses and costs we suffer because of it, such as a claim by the true owner or by a person shown in the image.
- You must be at least 18 to send us photos or films.
- Do not send images that reveal the location of rhino or other threatened species. We may remove location details before publishing.
- The licence lets our hosting and email providers store and display the images for us. It does not let us sell your images or license them to anyone else.
- Photos and films on the Through Your Lens page are protected by section 8. Visitors may not download or reuse them.
- How we handle the personal information connected with your images is explained in our Privacy Policy.
10. Reviews and other content you post
- "User content" means reviews, comments, questions, ratings, messages and anything else you post or send to us through the website, other than photos and films covered by section 9.
- User content must be honest, based on your own experience, lawful, and must not include other people's personal information without their agreement.
- You keep ownership of your user content. You give us a free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual licence to publish, edit for length and clarity, translate, and display it on the website, in proposals and in our marketing, with your first name and country or another name you choose. We will not change the meaning of a review.
- We may moderate user content before or after it appears. We may decline or remove content that breaks these terms, appears to be fake, or that we reasonably consider unsuitable. We do not remove honest negative reviews just because they are negative.
- Lodges, camps and operators may reply publicly to reviews about them.
- User content reflects the views of its author, not of Unearth.
- You may ask us to remove your own review at any time.
11. Unearth Gives
Pledges to Unearth Gives are voluntary. Payment is made only through the secure link we send you. We pass gifts on to the projects described and post progress updates. Project goals and timelines are targets and may change; if a project cannot go ahead we will offer to redirect or refund your gift.
- A pledge on the website is a statement of intention. It becomes a gift only when your payment is received.
- Project information is provided in good faith, partly by the communities and organisations we work with. We do not guarantee the results of any project.
- Unless we tell you otherwise in writing, Unearth Gives is a programme run by Unearth and is not a registered charity. Gifts are not tax-deductible and we do not issue tax receipts. Please do not rely on any tax benefit.
- We may show donors' first names and countries on project pages only if they agree.
12. Other websites
We link to other websites, such as government visa pages, for convenience. We are not responsible for their content.
A link does not mean we endorse the website or its owner. Your use of other websites is governed by their own terms and policies. You may link to our home page or public pages in a fair and lawful way, but not in a way that suggests an association with us that does not exist, and not by framing our pages within another site.
13. Availability and changes to the website
- We try to keep the website available at all times, but we do not guarantee that it will always be available, uninterrupted or free from errors. We may suspend it for maintenance, updates or security reasons.
- We may change, add or remove any part of the website, including Zoe, Explore in 3D and the trip planner, at any time.
- Saved trips and other information in your account are stored for your convenience. Please keep your own copy of anything important. Booking records are kept as described in our Privacy Policy.
14. Disclaimers
- The website and its content are provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we do not give any warranty that the website or its content is complete, accurate, up to date or fit for a particular purpose.
- We do not warrant that the website is free from viruses. Please use your own security software.
- Information about Suppliers and Partners is supplied mainly by them. We vet them carefully, but we cannot check every detail.
15. Liability
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss arising from use of the website or reliance on general information on it, or for the website being temporarily unavailable. Nothing here limits rights you have under the laws of Botswana that cannot be excluded.
- We are not liable for loss of profit, business, data or opportunity, or for indirect or consequential loss, arising from your use of the website.
- Where we are liable to you in connection with the website alone (and not a booking), our total liability is limited to BWP 1,000, to the extent the law allows. Liability in connection with a booking is governed by our Booking Terms.
- Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be excluded or limited under the laws of Botswana.
16. Your responsibility to us
You agree to cover the reasonable losses, costs (including reasonable legal costs) and claims that we suffer because you break these terms, post unlawful content, or infringe anyone's rights through the website. This does not apply to the extent that the loss was caused by us.
17. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect through the website, including through Zoe, cookies and browser storage, and how you can exercise your rights.
18. Law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Botswana.
We will try to resolve any dispute with you directly first. If we cannot, either of us may refer it to mediation, and otherwise to the courts of Botswana. If you are a consumer living outside Botswana, you keep any rights you have to bring a claim in the courts of your home country.
19. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms from time to time. The current version and date are shown at the top of this page. Changes apply from the date they are published. If you keep using the website after that, you accept the updated terms. If a change is important, we will also tell account holders by email.
If any part of these terms is found invalid, the rest remains in force. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.
20. Contact us
You can contact us about these terms, the website or any content on it at info@unearthbotswana.co.bw or on +267 73 776 447.
Questions about this document? Contact Unearth Botswana (Pty) Ltd at info@unearthbotswana.co.bw or +267 73 776 447.
