Makgadikgadi Salt Pans Botswana’s Great White Wilderness

It depends on what you’re chasing. The dry winter (May–October) is all about lunar-like emptiness, quad biking across endless horizons and meerkats using your head as a lookout. The wet summer (November–April) transforms the pans into shimmering lakes, drawing flamingos by the thousands and Africa’s second-largest zebra migration. Two completely different safaris, one destination.

Meerkats are the scene-stealers — impossibly cute and often far too bold. Add in desert-adapted wildlife like brown hyena, aardwolf, ostrich, jackal and cheetah, plus elephants along the Boteti River. And when the rains arrive, the zebra and wildebeest migration sweeps in, with predators right behind.

Yes — in fact, the Makgadikgadi is home to Africa’s second-largest zebra migration. Between December and March, tens of thousands of striped nomads arrive, turning the stark pans into a moving sea of black and white. Lions and hyenas happily follow the buffet.

Absolutely. Spending time with the San is an absolute highlight here (a must, in our opinion). You’ll learn about their survival skills, traditions and stories that stretch back millennia. They’ll show you how to track animals, forage in the desert and understand the land in a way science still can’t quite explain.

Think beyond the 4×4. Try quad biking into the nothingness, walking safaris with the San bushmen, or sleeping out on the pans (seasonal) under a sky crammed with stars. Birding, horse riding, and meerkat encounters also make it a safari menu like no other.

In the dry winter, the pans are cracked and empty — a surreal, lunar-like vast desert. In the wet summer, the pans become a shallow shimmering lake where wildlife appear to walk on water.

Southeast of the Okavango Delta, wrapped by the Kalahari, the pans sit in central Botswana. The easiest way in is to fly to Maun or Kasane, then hop on a light aircraft to your camp.

This is not where you come to see the Big 5. The Makgadikgadi Pans isn’t as game-rich as the delta, but you come for the contrast and the experience. You will walk away with experiences and stories you cannot get anywhere else. The game you’ll see here is desert-adapted — you come for meerkats, brown hyena, aardwolf, ostrich, and cheetah. In season, you’ll see huge herds of zebra and wildebeest with predators in tow.