Makgadikgadi Pans National Park
Expert Reviews (11)
Botswana Parks
Brian is an award winning travel writer, author of safari books and regular contributor to magazines such as BBC Wildlife and Travel Africa.
4 people found this review helpful.
The Big Empty
The Makgadikgadi is an extraordinary place. Once, 20,000 years ago, there was a lake here, twice the size of Lake Victoria. Then it vanished, leaving the mosaic of soda pans you’ll see today. In the dry season you can drive by quad bike into their blinding emptiness, where the silence is absolute. But come back in the green season when the flamingos arrive by the thousand and you’ll find them transformed. This is the time to see herds of gemsbok and zebras munching their way across endless vistas of emerald grass. With luck you might see cheetah and Kalahari lion, too; but the true superstars of the Makgadikgadi are the rare brown hyena and the habituated meerkats you can meet at Jack’s Camp. This is the only place I know where you can get so close to them, and a stay here is an absolute must, not just for its stunning location in a palm grove on the edge of the Pans, but for its comfort, style and sheer romanticism. Ralph Bousfield, who owns Jack’s Camp, knows the Makgadikgadi like the back of his hand. Ask him to take you to see Chapman’s Baobab, named after the Victorian explorer who came here in the 1850s. Lanner falcons nest in its seven giant spires and Chapman’s initials are still there – together with the marks left by stone-age hunters.
Mike is an award-winning wildlife writer, former editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
3 people found this review helpful.
Empty Horizons with Wildlife Surprises
The Makgadikgadi Pans represent another of Botswana’s geographical peculiarities. The pans themselves are all that remain of a vast prehistoric lake, emptied by the same prehistoric seismic forces that millions of years ago diverted the course of the Okavango River. Today, for much of the time, they are flat crusts of blinding white salt, extending to a treeless horizon. But once a year they are replenished by an underground overspill from the Okavango to become shimmering expanses of blue. Surrounding them are miles of grassland, studded with occasional palm stands and baobabs, which grade into denser bush towards the Boteti River in the far west.
The appeal of this unique park comes down to personal taste. Some find it depressingly desolate; others see a fascinating wilderness with unusual wildlife. On my first visit, many years ago, I saw few large mammals but was bewitched by the immense space and spectacular storm skies, and thrilled to find springhares bounding around my campsite and breeding flamingos on the edge of Sowa Pan. On a more recent visit, staying at a lodge towards the west, I coincided with an impressive zebra migration and saw a prolific variety of wildlife – including both lion and cheetah, plentiful springbok and blue wildebeest, and a scattering of bull elephant bulls drawn to waterholes that are now kept permanently pumped.
Perhaps even more exciting were the smaller mammals. The park is home to several habituated meerkat troops, which allow intimate viewing (one climbed on my head), while night drives produced springhares, bat-eared foxes and a memorable encounter with a foraging aardvark. Aardwolves and brown hyenas are a speciality here, though this time both eluded me, and the excellent birding is typical of the Kalahari, with raptors, bustards, sandgrouse and other arid, open-country species.
Lodges that operate in this area are not focused solely on the wildlife but will take you out onto the salt pans to learn about everything from the stars to the ancient archaeological sites. Other activities include starlit camp-outs, horse riding, bush walks with San trackers and – if you can bear violating this perfect wilderness with roaring engines – quad-bike trails. For the independent traveller, this is an area that rewards exploration, but only the experienced, well prepared and well equipped should venture onto the pans themselves, as the fragile crust can easily give way.
Emma is an award-winning travel writer for Rough Guides, National Geographic Traveller, Travel Africa magazine and The Independent.
3 people found this review helpful.
The largest saltpans in the world
In a country best known for its shimmering inland waterways and huge, charismatic herds of elephants, Makgadikgadi offers visitors a startling change of scene. Its giant salt-encrusted pans, once the bed of an ancient expanse of water, are truly surreal.
I’m not generally a fan of quad bikes – I don’t like the way that, like jetskis on wheels, they can cause great disturbance to animals, plants and the environment – but there’s no denying the thrill of whizzing around this forbidding patch of the Kalahari.
The pans may seem stark but the park is by no means all bleak desolation. Guides can help you find meerkat colonies, Sowa Pan in the east is the breeding ground for greater and lesser flamingoes, and the western reaches become grassy after the rains, attracting streams of wildebeest, zebras and lions.
Heather is a British travel / conservation journalist, and has written for publications and broadcasters such as the BBC, Departures, the Telegraph and the Sunday Times.
1 person found this review helpful.
Off-grid and wild
The Makgadikgadi Pans are what remains of Lake Makgadikgadi, a lake that was the size of Switzerland. These vast salt pans are south of the Okavango Delta and provide a real off-grid, wilderness experience – there is no signal and the few camps provide no Wi-Fi. Sitting on the pans, watching the sun go down and marvelling at the almost complete silence, is one of my top travel memories. I expected there to be little to no wildlife here, but I was pleasantly surprised on my two trips to the pans – I saw male lion coalitions, a lioness taking down a wildebeest as her cubs watched, big bull elephants (the females don’t tend to venture into this harsh environment), wildebeest and zebra herds, brown hyenas, bat-eared foxes and habituated meerkats. Quad biking is a fun way to explore this great, wild environment – for a real adventure, you can bike out to the giant baobabs of Kubu Island and camp overnight.
Harriet is a zoologist with more than 20 years’ experience. She has the privilege of working with the world’s top wildlife photographers and photo-guides.
1 person found this review helpful.
A Vast Nothingness
The Makgadikgadi Pans National Park offers a unique travel experience, with its vast open space, timelessness and complete nothingness. For much of the year, most of this desolate area remains waterless and large mammals are largely absent. But during and following the rainy season, the pans flood, attracting wildlife with large herds of zebra and wildebeest, followed by lion, cheetah and hyena. In very wet years, the pans fill with water, with thousands of flamingos and other waterbirds arriving.
The zebra migration heads for the Boteti River in the western Khumaga region of the national park. Around March onwards you can see hundreds of zebra flooding down to drink at the river. Wildebeest and bull elephants also gather here, although predators can still be tricky to find.
Lodges offer meerkat encounters, quad bike rides and, in the Dry season, the unique opportunity to sleep out on the pans, in the midst of the vast nothingness and ear-thrumming silence.
Kim is a travel writer who authored and updated over 15 guidebooks, including Lonely Planet's South Africa and Bradt's Tanzania guides.
1 person found this review helpful.
Beautiful nothingness
Standing in the middle of this immense expanse of what was once a super lake you suddenly feel very small. Lying south-east of the Okavango Delta and surrounded by the Kalahari, there is something beguiling about the beautiful nothingness of this place. Don’t expect to see much in the way of wildlife. While it does exist – migratory animals such as wildebeest, zebra, springbok and gemsbok are drawn in numbers by the temporary waterways during the rainy season – the true lure of Makgadikgadi is in experiencing the magnificent solitude and isolation of being in the middle of nowhere. That is, unless your guide, as ours did, chooses a campsite only a few kilometres from the main road. It was an odd feeling having the serenity of our surrounds intermittently interrupted by the distant rattle and hum of a truck as it rumbled down the highway. Even more surprisingly, we found we still had cell phone connections! The illusion however, was still upheld by the 360 degree views of crazed-cracked salt pan and the soft, pink glow of the sun as it slowly sank below the horizon revealing the vast star-studded night sky.
Anthony is a photographer and writer for travel magazines and Lonely Planet, including the guides to Kenya and Botswana & Namibia.
1 person found this review helpful.
The World’s Largest Salt Pans
Forming part of the northern Kalahari, the Makgadikgadi Pans is the largest network of salt pans on earth. The pans lie at the eastern end of the park, a fascinating world of endless horizons that spills over beyond the protected area. Indeed, some of the best pans – such as Ntwetwe and Sowa Pans, with their isolated islands of baobabs – lie beyond the park’s boundaries, and they’re the scene for the spectacular wet-season migration of zebra and wildebeest. At the eastern end of the pan network (again, beyond the park boundaries) is Nata Bird Sanctuary with tens of thousands of flamingos and pelicans in the wet season (November to April). At other times, Ntwetwe is good for some real wildlife specials, among them brown hyena and meerkats, and I’ve also had luck here with aardvark. For more traditional wildlife watching I prefer the park’s western end, along the Boteti River. One of few perennial water sources in Makgadikgadi from May to October, it’s a magnet for herbivores with lions, jackals and other predators in tow. Take your sundowner out on the pans.
Mark is a travel writer who grew up in Africa and has written over 700 titles for Condé Nast Traveller, Travel Africa, BBC Wildlife and others.
1 person found this review helpful.
World of extremes where the Okavango meets the Kalahari!
Makgadikgadi Pans is where what all those billions of gallons of Okavango riverwater disappear when they have finally completed their course all the way from the rainy hills of Angola. As such it is a place of extremes: in the dry season it turns into a hellish dustbowl (although having the benefit of concentrating wildlife around what little water can be found); in the wet the surface of the roads (not to mention the campsites) turn to rutted liquid mulch that can be tough going even for the hardiest 4wd. It is an adventure at any time though and wildlife sightings include some of Africa's biggest zebra and wildebeest herds. This was my second visit to Makgadikgadi Pans. Because of its isolation both times we had the entire park completely to ourselves.
Alan is a travel writer and author of over 20 Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the guides to Southern Africa and Zambia & Malawi.
A unique environment with wildlife aplenty
This huge national park incorporates vast pans….
However, this review focuses on the western side of the park, about a 2-hour drive from Maun. Here, a few barely floating logs wrapped together and powered by two outdoor motors passes as a ferry. And it’s the only way to cross the river into the park. It can fit one car at a time, so hope there isn’t a queue – there rarely is. When you make the 3-minute crossing over the beautiful Boteti River, there’s a campground just a kilometer or so along the river. In fact, shadowing the river once inside the park generally produced the most productive wildlife viewing. On my last trip here I saw scores of wildebeest, zebra, kudu and giraffe. I was even lucky enough to spot two bat-eared foxes, sitting lazily in the afternoon sun, their huge ears resembling radar dishes, and an African wildcat that ran parallel to our safari vehicle for some time. There is no other accommodation inside the park but on the outside near the Xhumaga Gate there are a couple of lodges – I’d recommend Meno a Kwena, especially for families, it’s about 30 km from the gate.
Stephen is a travel writer and avid conservationist whose work appears in prestigious magazines such as Africa Geographic and Travel Africa.
Dazzling Zebra and Shimmering Salt
Botswana’s great saltpans – Nxai, Ntwetwe and Sua – comprise an expansive region of northern Botswana known as Makgadikgadi: an ethereal and austere landscape like no other. Extending from the wildlife-rich Boteti River in the west to enormous Ntwetwe Pan – the largest of the saltpans – in the east, the 3,900 km2 Makgadikgadi Pans National Park protects large swathes of savannah grassland, iconic palm forest and Boteti River woodland, along with the western reaches of Ntwetwe Pan, within its confines. This lesser-known safari destination is home to a handful of luxury lodges and campsites.
While it might not claim the same predator-viewing potential as Botswana’s frontline reserves, it does boast extraordinary elephant viewing that rivals the world-renowned Chobe. Throw in an astounding diversity of habitats, picturesque wilderness campsites, and a dazzle of zebra second only to the Serengeti, and you have a year-round safari destination that’s difficult to omit from any itinerary exploring the best of northern Botswana.
Christopher is a British travel writer and has contributed to various Fodor's guidebooks and a range of travel magazines.
The desolate beauty of the seemingly-endless salt pans
Makgadigkadi is home to the world’s largest salt pans and stands in striking contrast to the Okavango river that finally meets its demise here. Not surprisingly considering the desolate terrain, big game tends to be scarce and hard to find, though large herds of zebra and wildebeest migrate through the park during the wetter months and bring with them better chances of seeing predators. The rare brown hyena is a fairly regular sighting here. Smaller mammals such as meerkats are common, while the Sowa Pan in the east is a popular flamingo breeding ground.
For the most part though, Makgadikgadi’s main draw card is the barren landscape and the complete sense of isolation that it invokes. As well as the vast salt pans, there are also rugged rocky outcrops, rings of ancient baobabs and strangely incongruous tall, thin palms. On our visit here, we didn’t see a single other car inside the park which, for me, is always a treat.
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