Reviews of safaris to Kalahari's Salt Pans

"Wonderful as ever. It was our 8th trip to Botswana and 5th to Namibia but we still saw lots of things we hadn't seen before, had great experiences and made lots of great memories.

Expert Africa / Megan, as efficient and helpful as ever in ensuring it all went smoothly and that we had a great time.

Our special requests, eg, for vehicles with canopies wherever possible, were passed on and acted on.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

How can you improve on perfection!

Perhaps the 'sighting list' could be a bit more broadly based to cover the ever present animals (for those new to Africa) and some of the rarer sightings for those with more experience." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 11 on a Botswana safari

"This was a successful holiday that delivered some great experiences. All the arrangements for travelling and being met worked well.
The quality of the food and drink was excellent.

Wildlife is about birds as well as big cats - and there are many to be seen.

Camp staff and guides gave high standard of service and we were well looked after at all times. The people were invariably friendly and welcoming." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 10 on a Botswana safari

"This started out as a once in a lifetime trip but as we travelled further in to Africa we decided we will definitely go back!!!!

I would have packed a little differently than I did. Taking 2 pair of thermal underwear would have been useful, as our nights and morning game drives were quite cold. We also had banking issues along the way. Even though we had given our bank all of our travel information we still had issues at ATMs. We should have brought far more cash with us than we did.

The people, the environment, and the animals were incredible!! Africa is something everyone should experience if they can.

We will go back!!!!!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

None that I can think of." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"My trip was really great. I saw may beautiful things in the almost pristine Botswana. I had a perfect mix of different habitats and plenty of wildlife. Wild dogs were one of the main drivers for this trip and I was able to see them in 3 out of the 6 camps.

So glad I included Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in my itinerary . What a great surprise. And what a nice camp, Camp Kalahari. And a meerkat experience which made me literally cry. Savute under Canvas was a bit of a disappointment. Due to the fact that this time the Savute channel was dry (no water - no life) and not the best guiding experience. Lebala I could have skipped without missing anything.

Great Plains offers superb wildlife experience. In very many ways. I have been very spoiled and lucky to have a car all to myself in both Duba plains and Selinda. Both are very pretty areas, and Duba plains even has a touch of magic.

I travelled alone and Botswana is a perfect and very safe destination. You travel alone, but are never alone. In the "posh" camps , people tempt to be a little bit more on their own, in the camps just below that level, all people join for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Logistics were arranged perfectly. Everybody knew when I was coming or going. It has been a wise - and very good - decision to book privates in several camps. Unique wildlife experience in your own pace. The " privates" in both Duba and Selinda were an extraordinary and great bonus." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 20 on a Botswana safari

"We could not be happier with our trip. The planning process went very smoothly. We received prompt and helpful replies to our email questions. Maruska was very informative and in addition to arranging most of out trip, she kindly and helpfully advised us on aspects of our trip that weren't booked by Expert Africa.

The camps all exceeded our expectations in every way, accommodations, food, activities. The transitions from one activity to another were flawless; there was always someone expecting us at the appropriate time and escorting us to the next flight or camp or activity.

We have travelled extensively in developing countries and this was the most stress free trip we have ever taken. It was pleasant, relaxing, and simply wonderful.

Though masks are not often used in Botswana, we never felt threatened by COVID. During our entire trip, we were almost never indoors with other people. During the one exception, our flights, the pilots wore masks and we were instructed do the same. Game drives were in open vehicles and all meals were served outdoors with the option of being nowhere near other diners.

We are confident that our risk was less on the trip than it would have been had we stayed home.

After a couple of days, we just stopped thinking about it." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 4 on a Botswana safari

"This was our second trip to Botswana with Expert Africa.

Despite our initial nervousness about this trip post- COVID, everything went extremely well. The advice and support provided by Tracy Lederer was invaluable in setting up our excellent itinerary. Whilst we knew that April/May are not the best times to see wildlife in Botswana, we were nevertheless able to see a wide variety of wildlife and birds during our trip, largely thanks to excellent guiding.

King’s Pool was a fantastic place to start as one would expect from a Wilderness Safaris camp. Kwara Camp was an excellent choice with a real focus on wildlife - we were very impressed with Kwando Safaris. Camp Kalahari was a very different and interesting place to finish - we had a wonderful experience there and would highly recommend it.

Overall the trip was amazing - it may have cost a lot of money but we will always treasure the experience.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No - we are very happy with everything done by Expert Africa. Thank you." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 11 on a Botswana safari

"Brilliant. I can’t imagine not using Expert Africa for a trip to Africa.

This is the second time we’ve travelled with Expert Africa and the whole experience has been amazing. I especially want to thank Megan Green - I have never experienced a travel consultant who is willing to call you (I live in Australia so considerable time difference) in order to find out about you and the type of trip that would best suit you, and respond so quickly to emails and follow up on every little query and concern with the utmost patience.

And thank you so much Megan, for recommending Andrew to us. I had never even heard of mobile safaris until you told us about Andrew’s and we are now truly hooked.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Not that I can think of at present." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 3 on a Botswana safari

"Great experience, everything went according to plan.
Thank you for a wonderful holiday." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"Our holiday is best summed up by a travel rep we met on Safari who looked at out itinerary and commented that it "was very clever indeed".

It yielded most of what Botswana can offer on the wild life front in varied locations each with their own characteristics of flora, faurna and animals in some of the best lodges that Botswana offers. We were a very lucky couple and many thanks to Expert Africa.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Nearly 3 years in the making with changes and cancellations and a host of really helpful suggestions from Expert Africa who showed great patience with us..............is there anything more to suggest.... NO.

Thanks Expert Africa.............you are all stars." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 12 on a Botswana safari

"This has been our fifth trip to Southern Africa and the second that we booked with expertafrica. We spent three weeks self-driving in Namibia and then roughly two weeks on a fly-in safari in northern Botswana. Compared to our 2021 trip, this one featured much more landscape (as can be expected of Namibia) and more interactions with humans. That’s not to say that we didn’t see any less wildlife than on previous trips.

I would like to also emphasize that this trip was the first time that we visited this region at the end of the southern summer, i.e. at the very end of the rain season. Previously we had traveled here only in October (3 times) or July (once). We were pleasantly surprised by all the greenery, and we weren’t bothered by mosquitoes in any significant way. However, I should point out that my wife was often bitten by midges, whereas I wasn’t.

Virtually all guidebooks point out that the dry season is the best time to visit Africa in order to get the best wildlife sightings. I readily admit that the tall grass sometimes impedes tracking down predators, however, as my review of the camps in Botswana shows, we were not really short-changed of lion and cheetah sightings. Overall, except perhaps for leopards (only 2 encounters in 5 weeks) the wildlife sightings were as good as in the dry season, and in some aspects they were even better: To us, the animals appeared to be more relaxed or at least less stressed, due to the availability of food and water.

Everybody we talked to said that the region had a good rainy season. However, during our whole stay, we only had one brief shower (during siesta time in Etosha Heights) and one morning game drive in Nxai Pan, during which we had to wear rain gear and protect our cameras.

All ten safari camps are, in our minds, highly recommendable. And, as it turned out repeatedly, we saved the best (Kwara Camp) for last. This is not in any way to diminish the experiences we had at other camps. They all had their special appeal. However, if asked which are the places we are most likely to revisit again, they are Okonjima, NamibRand, Tau Pan and Kwara Camps.

I would like to add a comment about the flights to the various camps in Botswana. All of them took place on time and, most importantly, got us safely from point A to point B. However, I don’t quite understand why the departure times are only given to us the day before. I understand that for the airlines it can be challenging to come up with an economic way of handling these flights, but isn’t it true that virtually all of these trips are booked months in advance? For instance, on our way from Maun to Kwara Camp, we stopped in Xaranna and then Shinde Camps, whereas on our way back to Maun, it was a direct flight of 25 minutes.

Finally, a comment about Covid-19. Entry requirements with regards to corona changed during our trip: While we had to produce a negative PCR test for our first destination Namibia (to the tune of $250 per person) they lifted that requirement one week after we arrived, and Botswana lifted its requirement for the test before we crossed into Botswana. So did South Africa. The US, on the other hand, still requires a negative PCR test, so we did that in Maun one day before our departure back home. However, no one asked us to produce the paperwork!

I would also like to commend the way the camps in Zimbabwe last year handled the seating arrangements during the meals. They provided separate tables for each party rather than having everybody sit together at one or two tables along with the guides. I sense that this is a delicate issue and that it’s really up to company policy and not expertafrica to decide what’s best. With regards to guests sitting together I much prefer the separate tables arrangement, because in our five trips to Africa so far, our experience has been that the vast majority of conversations one has at these occasions amount to not much more than small talk: Where have you been, and where are going from here? Of course, there are exceptions. For instance, we got to know one couple from Switzerland and, on another trip, a couple from the UK that we really liked to talk to, and then we simply asked the camp staff to set up a table for four instead of two.

And with regards to the guides sharing the dinner: Of course, they deserve to have a gourmet dinner just like the guests, but I would say, they can have it in the quiet of the staff quarters, because in my mind, they deserve a well-earned break because they work hard enough already as it is. Again, in our experience, we had virtually all of the stimulating and significant conversations with them during the game drives, the coffee break and the sundowners, but not during dinner time." Read full review: 35 nights in Africa; 19 on a Namibia trip