Nxai Pan National Park

Absolutely awesome, and completely remote and felt like you were in your own world !

We spent 3 days at Nxai Pan on a Self drive as part of a 3 week trip to Zambia and Botswana in September 2011. We spent our first days in Livingston doing the adventure activities such as White Water rafting and Micro Flight. We then self drove through Chobe National Park, Savuti and Moremi. We spent 3 days in Nxai Pan which I can say were probably the most memorable days of our trip. We stayed at South Camp and were within 2 miles of the nearest watering hole within the park. The wildlife was stunning !! Stunning sunsets ! Elephants, Springbok (in their thousands), Wilderbeast, Ostrich, Guinea fowl, Marshall Eagles, Hyena, Oryx to name only a few. We came across a pride of lions that were at the peak of health. Approximately 5-6 females and 3 cubs about 3 months old. A very fit and healthy male. The remoteness was amazing and minimal tourist. We spent a whole morning with a Lion pride and not a single other vehicle in sight !
We would also recommend visiting the Baines Baobab trees !
This park is a must for those wanting to get away from the tourist safari !

An unhindered drive into old school bush alive with vibrant tranquility and long sunset horizons.

I drove in unguided with a 4x4 with the complete feeling of discovery and calmness as a privileged part of nature in Nxai Pan. Once inside, there is really nothing beyond the ablution block in the camp to signify man's comforts and trespass upon the wild. Respect for the environment means a novel observational experience like you might have seen 50 years ago, in that there are no tarred roads or fences around hutted camps.
As a photographer, you have unique accessibility to clear fields of view, especially by the water holes, where a sensible proximity to elephants is possible. This increases the feeling of being part of nature and builds a great sense of regard. The open areas allowed me to track a Lion walking for more than a mile and get an awesome sequence of shots.
The camp ground is literally a space for tents and vehicles, with the provision of a water supply and toilet/shower facilities. Walking amongst the trees there reveals many other often overlooked species, particularly birds and insects, heightened with the exciting reality that you are in wild country without a perimeter to keep animals out.
This part of Botswana really does offer some fantastic sunset scenes with long shadows and deep colours as the dust dances in the air.
A thoroughly recommendable trip with a difference, impossible to match in South Africa.

Completely alone

The Nxai Pan National Park was definitely one of the highlights on our three week trip through Botswana.
We stayed at Baines camp site 2, which gave us some much needed shade against the hot afternoon sun. There were some campers at site 3 at night but the distance between the sites is so great that you could only make out thier campfire in the pitch black dark.
Complete silence. I have never felt so far away from Civilization in my life as I did n this National Park. We did not see a single human soul or human presence (other than the mentioned fire) the entire time in the park.

When the sun goes down you really feel like part of the milky way as there is a billion stars all around.

I can strongly recommend this place. Book your campsites early as there are only three of them.

An excellent introduction to Botswana.

My partner and I went to the Nxai Pans in September 2011 arranged by Far and Away, before heading off into the Delta with Letaka (through Naturetrek).

We stayed in Nxai Pans National Park at one of the government run camps, sleeping in tents and using the excellent solar showers at the camp. Our guide drove us on almost all of the tracks within the park, especially to the water holes which were teaming with birds and mammals. Although there were no big predators it was great to see so much wildlife on my first trip to Africa. On the last full day we went to the pans on route to Baines Boababs. The Pans were amazing; flat, hot and as far strecthing as you could see. The Boababs were an amazing place to stop for lunch! On the way back to camp on the very sandy road we had to rescue a couple who had stuck thier 4WD. I would recomend being driven!

Lodge was not so spectacular.
Drivers can not go of road so you don't get to see much wildlife (we didn't)

Contrast and extraordinary landscape amazing! amazing birds

Amazing up close encounters with elephants.

timing matters

Arriving at the Nxai Pan gate, we were greeted by another track masquerading as a river and informed that we could only be admitted at our own risk. This was a no-brainer as our camp was already set up in there and there was no alternative. As it was getting fairly late, we did a short game drive and repaired to camp for dinner and bed.

Next morning all was well and we set off to see what Nxai Pan had to offer. It was to turn out to be a day mainly consisting of bird sightings, apart from hundreds of Zebras, which was the reason we were there anyway. They were even more plentiful than the Oryx had been in Central Kalahari and our guide estimated we saw between three and five thousand in Nxai Pan. However, the vast amount of rain and the affect it had on the vegetation meant the Zebras didn’t need to migrate so far as in most years. Had it been a normal year he estimated we would have seen three to four times that number.

My first impression of Nxai Pan was how big and open the area is, although only a fraction of the area covered by Central Kalahari. It is classic Cheetah territory and that was what I was hoping to see. I didn’t have to wait long on our second day and we found a female with two young cubs, probably about nine months old. We spent best part of an hour with them as they slowly moved around their range and the cubs played happily with each other, before they moved into cover and we left them.

Next up was another herd (dazzle) of Zebras, and another brief Cheetah sighting, but much of the day was spent looking for Lions. After lunch, we were successful, even witnessing a (distant) mating session. There was a torrential thunderstorm later on in the afternoon, but once this moved through we had another Cheetah sighting, which turned out to be the brother of the female we had seen in the morning.

That brought us to the end of our two full days in Nxai Pan and just left us with a game drive to the gate next morning. We had been trying, unsuccessfully, to photograph a European Bee-eater since we arrived, but every time our guide killed the engine, the bird would fly. Finally we were successful as we found one in an Acacia bush and it didn’t move. Also added a Bradfield’s Hornbill to our list as it posed beautifully beside the track.

My overall impression of Nxai Pan is somewhat mixed. Certainly we saw exactly what we went there for, so we have no complaints on that score. But there are vast areas of the reserve that are inaccessible due to the no off-roading policy. I understand the reasons for this policy and agree with it, but it only works if there are adequate roads to use and that is where Nxai Pan suffers.

Our safari (our first!) was more than we expected it be. Once in a lifetime adventure!

Nxai Pan was our first stop on our two week mobile tent safari. Took the better part of a day to drive from Maun with our first stop being Thomas Baines Baobas. Wow! Breathtaking. When we were told the legend that the trees were thrown to Earth below, we could understand why! Since we were there in winter, the leaves were gone and the branches look like the roots. We stayed 2 nights in Nxai Pan and we were treated to our very first view of 2 magnificent male lions lounging in the sun. Still my very favorite memory of the trip. Of course, other wildlife is abundant and hundreds of bird species. Our weather was perfect; cold in the mornings but beautiful and comfortably warm by 10am. Our guide was Alwyn Myburgh of Yambo Safaris. Very knowledgable guide & tracker. His crew was outstanding! The food was out of this world.......better than anything I could ever cook at home and they were cooking on a open fire. Seriously.....fresh bread daily and chocolate mousse? Alwyn had arranged for everything we would ever need during our two weeks in Botswana. I would love to go back and take the family some day. What a special trip!