Travel to Kgalagadi

extremely arid, with very low wildlife densities

Kgalagadi was the world’s first trans-frontier peace park, a collaboration between South Africa and Botswana in 1999.

An enormous unfenced landscape, this terrain is largely harsh and arid, with many desert-adapted species, including iconic oryx antelopes and huge black-maned lions. Large herbivores, including blue wildebeest, springboks, elands and red hartebeest, move seasonally, congregating around the riverbeds after the rains during the Mar-May early dry season.

In the local San Bushman language, ‘Kgalagadi’ means ‘Place of Great Thirst’. It’s not difficult to see how this vast area of sparsely vegetated deep red dunes, salt pans and sandbeds earned the name. The Nossob and Auob rivers only very occasionally run with surface water.

Other interesting sightings include leopard tortoises, raptors, and, occasionally, pangolins and honey badgers.

Kgalagadi is characterised by an extremely arid climate, with a desperately long and harsh Apr-Oct dry season. However, the temperatures are lower at this time (occasionally below freezing at night) and the birding can be relatively strong.

Any rain that does fall comes during the Nov-Mar hot wet season, when dramatic thunderstorms, often accompanied by dust storms, can trigger the blooming of vivid green grasses and wildflowers, leading to magical but very elusive clusterings of wildlife.

Getting there

The reserve experiences relatively low visitor numbers, most of whom are hardcore overlanders, undertaking the long overland traverse from Upington in South Africa to Maun in northern Botswana.

If you want to include Kgalagadi in your trip, then let us know and we will help you put together an epic overland trip.

It’s worth mentioning that this area should be explored in convoy, but if you are intending to travel in one vehicle, it is usually possible to team up with other people along the way.

more common to visit Central Kalahari