ENCOUNTERSAFRICA
7-Day Salt Pans & Boteti Safari

Botswana - Fly-in safari

7-Day Salt Pans & Boteti Safari

Duration
7 days
Countries
Botswana
Suited to
2-8 guests
Pricing
From USD 12,980

The journey

Updated on 23 August 2026

This is the desert cut of Botswana, and it argues that the country's strangest landscapes are its most memorable. San Camp is the aesthetic extreme: seven white tents on the very lip of the Makgadikgadi salt pans, no fences, no neighbours, furniture from another century. Days here are meerkats at sunrise, walks with Zu/'hoasi San trackers, and in the dry season quad bikes straight out onto the lake bed that died fifty thousand years ago. Then the water returns. Leroo La Tau stands on a bluff above the Boteti River, the western boundary of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, where the country's second-largest zebra population comes to drink. In the dry months the riverfront below the hide fills and empties all day; between December and March the herds spread onto the green pans with their foals. It is a quieter, cheaper, odder Botswana than the delta circuit, and pairs of days here tend to outlast fancier memories. Fly-in throughout, three nights and three nights.

Your camps, day by day

Stay 1

Maun to the White Edge

A 40 minute flight east from Maun ends on a strip of grey calcrete, with San Camp's white pyramids shimmering against the pan beyond. Tea under the palms, then an evening drive onto the lake bed itself, where the horizon curves and the silence has actual weight. Dinner is by lantern, jackets on in winter.

Stay 2

Meerkats and Trackers

You are seated by the meerkat colony before sunrise, and as the sand warms the clan boils up around you, sentries using shoulders and heads as high ground. The morning continues on foot with Zu/'hoasi San trackers reading the night's spoor. After dark, a spotlight drive quarters the grassland for brown hyena and aardvark.

Stay 3

Onto the Pan

Dry season means quad bikes: a run onto the open pan with nothing ahead but curvature, a stop at Chapman's Baobab, and the option of bedrolls set out for a night under the entire sky. In the green months the pan margins carry zebra and wildebeest instead, with flamingo on the seasonal water. Both versions end around the fire.

Stay 4

West to the Boteti

A 25 minute hop carries you across the national park to its western boundary, where Leroo La Tau's thatched suites stand on a bluff above the Boteti River. The riverfront below is the busiest water for fifty kilometres. You may not need to leave the deck before dinner: the zebra come to you, in files that never quite end.

Stay 5

The River Hide

Morning game drive into the park across the river, among zebra in their thousands during the dry months, with the lion and spotted hyena that shadow the herds. The heat of the day belongs to the hide at the water's edge, eye level with everything that comes down to drink, which in October is close to everything.

Stay 6

Zebra at Full Strength

A full day with the migration: drives along the riverbank as the herds cycle between grazing and water, jackal and bat-eared fox working the margins, and a sundowner stop above the valley as the dust turns the light to bronze. A village visit to Khumaga can be woven in for the human side of the river's story.

Stay 7

Boteti to Johannesburg

One more sunrise over the river, then the 35 minute flight back to Maun and the early-afternoon Johannesburg connection, landing in time for evening international departures. A week of salt, grass and river, and the useful discovery that Botswana does not need the delta to be extraordinary.

Safari highlights

  • Three nights at San Camp on the salt-pan edge
  • Meerkats, San tracking and pan sleep-outs
  • Three nights at Leroo La Tau above the Boteti River
  • Botswana's zebra migration at the waterline
  • A photographic hide at river level
  • Quad biking on the pans in the dry season

What is included

Included

  • 6 nights accommodation, per person sharing
  • Return regional flights Johannesburg-Maun in economy class
  • Light-aircraft sectors Maun-San Camp, San Camp-Leroo La Tau and Leroo La Tau-Maun, with airstrip taxes
  • All meals, house wines, local spirits, beers and soft drinks
  • Desert activities at San Camp and twice-daily game drives at Leroo La Tau
  • Makgadikgadi Pans National Park fees, government levies and VAT
  • Botswana Tourism Development Levy of USD 30 per person
  • Laundry and emergency medical evacuation cover

Not included

  • International flights to and from Africa
  • Visas and entry permits
  • Comprehensive travel and medical insurance
  • Premium spirits, champagne and imported wines
  • Gratuities for guides, trackers and camp staff
  • Items of a personal nature, curios and telephone calls

Frequently asked questions

How much does a 7-day Makgadikgadi safari cost?

From USD 12,980 per person sharing, rising to about USD 14,380 in peak season. That covers six nights at San Camp and Leroo La Tau, all meals and house drinks, park fees, desert activities, three light-aircraft sectors and the return Johannesburg-Maun regional flights. International flights to Africa are excluded and quoted separately.

When can you see the zebra migration on the Boteti?

Two windows. In the dry months, roughly May to October, up to twenty thousand zebra fall back on the Boteti River and drink below Leroo La Tau daily, which is prime for the hide. Between December and March the same herds spread east onto the rain-greened pans with their foals, and San Camp is the better vantage. April and November are the marching months between.

What is San Camp actually like?

Seven white canvas tents in a line of palms on the pan edge, with brass beds, Persian rugs and no permanent structures at all; the camp is struck when the rains flood the pans. There is no wifi in the tents, no engine noise and no light past the lanterns. It is deliberately old-fashioned, extremely comfortable, and unlike anywhere else in southern Africa.

Is this a good first safari?

It is a superb second one. The Big Five box is better ticked in the delta, Chobe or the Sabi Sand; the desert deals in different currency, meerkats, brown hyena, San culture, zebra in their thousands and horizons with nothing on them. Travellers who already know classic game drives tend to rate this trip above them. First-timers should combine it with a delta camp.

Are international flights included?

No. International flights to and from Africa are booked separately, normally through Johannesburg. Included here are the return Johannesburg-Maun regional flights of about 1 hour 40 minutes each way and the three light-aircraft hops within Botswana, with their 20 kg soft-bag luggage limit. Nights on the pans drop near freezing in winter, so pack one serious layer.

Is the Makgadikgadi a malaria area?

Risk is lower than the delta but present, particularly along the Boteti River and in the November to April rains. Most clinics advise prophylaxis for the whole of northern Botswana, arranged about six weeks before travel. Both camps screen their tents and provide repellent. Yellow fever certificates apply only if you arrive from a transmission-risk country.