Reviews of Makgadikgadi Pans (From 11 Acclaimed Safari Experts)

Expert

Mike Unwin –

UK

Visited: April

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

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Expert

Emma Gregg –

UK

Visited: May

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Expert

Heather Richardson –

ZA

Visited: Multiple times

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

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Expert

Kim Wildman –

AU

Visited: September

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

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Expert

Mark Eveleigh –

UK

Visited: February

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!

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

1 person found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Expert

Alan Murphy –

AU

Visited: September

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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.

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Expert

Christopher Clark –

UK

Visited: September

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

Overall rating

4/5

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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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Makgadikgadi Pans National Park

Expert Reviews (11)