Relicts of an ancient lake the size of Switzerland, Makgadikgadi is a cluster of three large saltpans (Ntwetwe, Sua and Nxai) and several smaller ones set in the semi-arid savanna of northeast Botswana. The western part of this 6,200-square-mile wilderness is protected in the contiguous Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pans National Parks, while the Nata Sanctuary in the northeast is named after the ephemeral river that occasionally fills the pans with water.

Disover Makgadikgadi Pans

Makgadikgadi has a very seasonal landscape. Most of the time the pans are unalleviated white crusts that possess a compellingly bleak and windswept aura but attract little wildlife other than the odd ostrich, springbok or oryx. In years of ample rain, by contrast, Makgadikgadi transforms into a mosaic of shallow wetlands and grasslands that support a wealth of large mammals and aquatic birdlife. 

Over Dec-Mar, the remote Nxai Pan National Parks is an important rainy-season breeding ground for large migratory herds of wildebeest and zebra.

In years of good rain, Makgadikgadi attracts aggregations of up to 100,000 greater and lesser flamingoes. The best place to see these and other aquatic birds is the Nata Sanctuary, close to the town of the same name.

A reliable scenic highlight close to Nxai Pan, Baines’s Baobabs is named after the British explorer and artist Thomas Baines, who accompanied David Livingstone on the 1858 expedition that culminated in their becoming the first Europeans to visit Victoria Falls. This beautiful grove of baobabs, set on the edge of a small salt pan, is little changed in appearance since it was painted by Baines 160 years ago.

The two national parks offer great dry-country birding at all times of year. Specials include -winged courser, pied babbler, black-eared waxbill, violet-eared waxbill and a confusion of similar-looking near-endemic larks.