Nxai Pan National Park

timing matters

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!

Not a popular venue but does boast the famous "Baines' Baobabs, a must see if you visit here.

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.

In winter the elephants leave for the Makgadigadi Pans. Slightly dissapointed, but the Bain's Baobabs are beautiful

I don't remember Nxai Pan as well as the other locations we camped in, but I recall thinking this was the place most decimated by elephants, so it had a bit of a blasted feel. But the wildlife and wilderness feel were still off the charts.

Great sceneries but slighty less wildlife as the other parks

Maybe the wildlife is a bit low compared to the rest - BUT THE SCENIC BEAUTY of the Kubu Island in the Sua Pan makes up in abundance - Botswanna without this stop would NOT be on!