I’ve just returned from a short family trip to Botswana, where we spent a few nights at the beautiful San Camp, set on the edge of the vast Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. It’s a very different experience to the Okavango Delta. Where the Delta is lush, water-filled and teeming with wildlife, the pans are dry, expansive and almost surreal for much of the year. It’s a place of big skies, endless horizons, and a kind of quiet that’s hard to describe until you’ve experienced it. And with that landscape comes a completely different set of unique experiences like quad biking or horseriding across the pans, sleeping out under the stars and spending time with habituated meerkats using us as lookout point which we all loved.

We also spent a morning with the San Bushmen. Before the trip, I had seen an episode of Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild featuring Aleks Orbeck-Nilssen who has established an academy to help younger generations of the San (Ju’/hoansi tribe) stay connected with their heritage. Botswana’s ban on hunting has fundamentally changed the way the San are able to live, and much of that knowledge risks being lost. The academy is a way of preserving it.

What we experienced was not a performance. There was no sense of it being staged or curated for visitors. It felt genuine and authentic. We went for a walk together, moving slowly through the bush, stopping by different trees as they spoke in their language with lots of passion and clicks.  Trees that can help reduce a fever, straighten their hair, produce the best fire sticks and give poisen for their arrows. They showed us how to set a simple trap for a hare, how to locate and carefully dig out a scorpion, throw a spear and how to start a fire using nothing but wood and dried zebra dung. They even taught us the game they play around the camp fire after they eat in the evening. Oscar my 11-year-old son was completely absorbed, he’s been learning about the San at school.

The Bushman rotate through the academy every few months, and from what we were told, they genuinely love coming back and reconnecting with traditions that might otherwise disappear. For us, it was a privilege to witness even a small part of that. In a country known for some of Africa’s most iconic safari experiences, this was a reminder that Botswana offers something more -not just extraordinary landscapes and wildlife, but the opportunity to understand the people who have lived in these environments for generations.

For families travelling to Botswana, I always encourage a few nights in the Makgadigadi Pans area. It combines so well with a three-night safari in the Delta, either before or after, offering very unique activities and a completely different perspective. There are three camps run by Uncharted Africa Safaris – Camp Kalahari, the most rustic and and great for families; San Camp, set right on the edge of the pans, better suited to older children or teenagers; and Jack’s Camp, the original and most luxurious of the three. All offer the same core experiences – it’s simply a question of style, space and level of comfort.
Categories: BotswanaPublished On: 30/04/2026