Reviews of safaris to Kalahari's Salt Pans

"In total, we spent a month in Africa birding in South Africa and Namibia before our last six nights in Botswana.

Our Botswana experience was a bit of a mixed bag. The two camps we visited - Nxai Pan and Tau Pan - are very nice camps with great staff but are a bit uncomfortable if crowded because of the communal approach to dining. (20 people at a large table shouting at each other.)

We missed one night in the middle of the trip altogether because weather prevented a landing at our second camp and forced us to spend the night at a hotel in Maun.

Overall, a nice but not great experience in Botswana compared to some of our many other African trips.

Overall, Expert Africa does seem to be an "expert" on Africa. This was the second trip that we taken with help from Maruska and we are very pleased with the advice as well as the actual organization of our trips.

Keep up the good work!" Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"Spectacular! Feel hugely privileged to have seen and experienced all that we did during our time in these 2 countries.

Variety is the spice of life and every day on the trip brought some new highlight, be it a particular wildlife sighting or interaction, a scenic location or an activity. The trip has re-kindled our addiction for Africa and has only served to convince us to seek more! We would happily return to any of the locations we visited and on each occasion, when it was time to move on, we wished we could linger on at each place - a sure sign of our appreciation.

We are especially indebted to Tracy Lederer for her knowledgeable guidance and patience during the planning and booking process. We acknowledge that we were not the easiest clients to deal with but only because of the need to "get it right" for these once in a lifetime trips and Tracy was spot on with her recommendations and reassurances. It was obvious that her advice was informed by her personal experiences of the various locations.

Logistically, pretty much everything went without hitch. (Even a trekking pole which was left at Muchenje somehow found its way back to us at Maun airport on the way home - don't know how, but Tracy located it and engineered its reunion!!). Appreciating the remote locations reinforces our admiration for the efficiency of your operation, working with the local teams.

We would fully recommend your services and would have no hesitation in approaching you ourselves for future trips in Africa. Till next time..." Read full review: 28 nights in Africa; 16 on a Botswana safari

"A long awaited trip of a lifetime - and it was amazing. Botswana is not cheap to "do" properly - but it is amazing" Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari

"A perfectly well organised trip.

Megan is a very pleasant and efficient person to organise a trip. She is very careful on details and she is really making an effort to understand her clients' preferences.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep up the good work." Read full review: 7 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"Our information and discourse was always with Maruska who was meticulous, knowledgeable and detailed in the planning with regard to our trip. We cannot thank her enough for the planning that was executed flawlessly, that reduced the anxiety of the multitude of transfer and connection flights that occurred within our itinerary.

The execution on the ground and air by the operators was flawless and any oddities that occurred were developments that could not be predicted by Expert Africa or their employees. Updates are required by direct observation and on site verification. We hope that we have provided them for you in this review in an objective manner that is factual without any bias or drama. Of course, there are always two sides to a story and after submission of our comments to any of the operators, if there is a discrepancy of the events that occurred, we are happy to respond or reply in kind. Our comments are also documented by photos of the elephants on the walkways and streets near the Vic Falls Hotel and in the case of the excessive call to prayer by the Imam near the Machweo hotel, we have a live, timed recording to document this annoyance.

Otherwise, it would be hard to improve upon the suggestion of camps recommended by Maruska in the Kalahari or Zambia for the quality of service and most importantly, for the wildlife that was observed.

We think we are seasoned travelers and it is not often that we would ever lavish such praise upon a an individual or company that helped us so much with the arrangements but Expert Africa and Maruska are to be commended. So please accept our sincerest thanks for an itinerary well planned and executed. If Maruska can put in the time and effort to plan this trip, we can certainly take the time and effort to evaluate in kind. Thank you.

Greg & Kathy

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service: We never looked at brochures, website or general literature etc. from Expert Africa. Perhaps we missed something. I think we have already given our suggestions in this extensive evaluation process on how to improve such trips. Fortunately, there was not much need for that." Read full review: 36 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"We had a fabulous trip to Botswana. It mostly lived up to expectations, in that we felt that we got a "Real Africa" experience, while staying in some spectacular lodges. All our thanks to Maruska for the arrangements. There were absolutely no hick-ups, all travel arrangements fell into place like clockwork" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 7 on a Botswana safari

"Great holiday.

Enjoyed every minute of it." Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 7 on a Botswana safari

"My adult daughter and I agree that Somalisa was the best camp with Waterberry a very close second. Her favorite experience was the meerkat climbing on her. I found so much of it awesome it's hard to describe.

In trying to explain the experience to people the closest I can get to accurate is "something amazing happens and then something else amazing happens, etc." I can't compare the rush of seeing lion doing their thing against seeing the rush of Victoria Falls. I can't compare how it feels to be in the vast desolate Makgadikgadi Pans to seeing the vastness of the southern sky's blanket of universe. Being comedically entertained by the meerkat, mud wallowing warthogs, running ostrich, and hippo grunting are experiences like no other. It's completely absurd that neither my daughter nor I were afraid of the 7 white rhino we walked to and stood amongst. It was pretty clear to me when the 1st bush flight landed scaring away zebra and an ostrich from the airstrip that Africa suits me. I guess that's why I didn't blow the air horn when the elephant tried to join my shower.

To close this out - I've lived and worked on 3 continents and know a 4th extensively but there is nothing like Africa.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

The process was long for both me and everyone that had to interact with me. Now that I've done it I hope to not be so high maintenance in the future.

One of the reasons I chose EA was because when my plan went from Zambia only I was handed to another person with more expertise in the new regions. I appreciated that. No one at EA tried to "upsell" me either. That is why I dropped the other company I had begun inquiry with.

I'll be emailing the wildlife sightings. We wrote in a lot." Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 3 on a Botswana safari

"This is likely our last safari and was a great way to end what has been a passion of ours for 30 years.

We enjoyed new places ( Namibia and Tanzania) , saw incredible sights ( especially the Crater and the migration) , ate wonderful food and met many wonderful people" Read full review: 51 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"Brilliant!" Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 9 on a Botswana safari