A guide to the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa

The Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa covers nearly a million square kilometres. It swallows most of Botswana – as much as 90% by some estimates – as well as large swathes of Namibia and northern South Africa. Although it is one of the world’s largest sand deserts, it has – unlike the neighbouring Namib Desert – relatively few sand dunes: the Kalahari is more famous for its golden grasslands and blinding-white salt pans. And where the Namib is among the world’s oldest deserts – it may be 55 million years old – the Kalahari is relatively young in geological terms, at fewer than 18,000 years old.

The name "Kalahari" derives from the Tswana word, kgala (which means "a great thirst") or kgalagadi ("place without water"), and it denotes a remarkable place. Alongside the arid and semi-arid landscapes that define this desert, this is a land animated by astonishing populations of wildlife and the soulful presence of the San, one of Africa’s oldest people.

When is the best time to go to the Kalahari?

The best times to visit are during the dry season (roughly from May to October), when temperatures are mild and conditions are generally dry, although sudden, intense thunderstorms are possible at any time. Rainfall varies across the Kalahari, and while rains are possible year-round, they are most likely November to March or April. This being a semi-desert region, overall rainfall is unlikely to seriously impact your visit, although some trails can become impassable at these times.

Do I need a visa?

Botswana allows visa-free entry for stays of up to 90 days on arrival at any Botswana border point.

Both Namibia and South Africa are moving towards requiring electronic authorization before traveling to the country. For Namibia, online applications can be made now. South Africa is introducing an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA ) from 25 September, 2025 – upon receiving a code, most nationalities will be allowed to enter and stay in South Africa for 90 days.

For all three countries, you must have a passport with more than six months’ validity.

How do I get to the Kalahari?

Most international flights to Southern Africa connect through Johannesburg and, to a lesser extent, Cape Town. From there, flights with Airlink connect with Windhoek (for Namibia), and Maun or Kasane (for Botswana). For 4WD rental in all three countries try Africa Driven. Or for tours to the Kalahari, check SafariBookings, which has both expert and traveler reviews.

Where are the best places to go in Botswana's Kalahari?

Botswana is the true Kalahari nation, the place where you find the desert at its most extreme and most beautiful. The Kalahari envelopes everywhere in Botswana, save for the country’s east – which is, not surprisingly, the country’s most densely populated region – and far north. Everywhere else is pure Kalahari, and five national parks that run north–south through the heart of the country provide the entry points into this astonishing desert realm.

Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pans

In Botswana’s north, not far from the Okavango Delta, one of the world’s largest wetlands, Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pans national parks preside over the northernmost reaches of the Kalahari. Salt pans – including the world’s largest network of salt pans in Makgadikgadi and beyond – resemble some kind of hallucinatory void. By day, the pans shimmer in the heat, the horizon lost in a mirage-like blurring of land and sky. In the early light of dawn or the late golden hour of sunset, these pans have an elemental quality as the light softens and contrasts emerge.

The grassy islands here, some with mopane woodlands, provide habitat for wildlife that you simply don’t find elsewhere in desert regions. Elephants and giraffes roam alongside cheetahs and lions, while Nxai Pan is one of few places in Africa where impala and springbok are seen together in one place. Away to the south, in Makgadikgadi, with the Boteti River in the west and the salt pans in the east, there are meerkats habituated to human presence, as well as brown hyenas and aardvarks, not to mention the world’s second-largest zebra migration.

These pans were once the ocean floor of a vast inland sea. South of Makgadikgadi, at Kubu Pan – an island crowned with baobabs – the fossilized guano on the giant boulders mark the ancient shoreline where seabirds once looked out over the water.

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Counted among Africa’s largest protected areas, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) is the Kalahari at its finest. Fossilized river valleys and grasslands that sway in a Kalahari wind connect salt pans, winding between sand dunes carpeted arid scrubland – the backdrop to populations of gemsbok and giraffe, of honey badger and bat-eared fox, of Kalahari lions whose males are adorned with the Kalahari’s distinctive (and luxuriant) black manes.

The best known – and most popular – sections of the park center around Deception Valley, perhaps the CKGR’s most beautiful corner. Deception Valley is also the one-time home of Mark and Delia Owens whose 1984 memoir, Cry of the Kalahari, has near-mythical status among travelers. A new generation has come in search of echoes from this time, after Delia Owens later found worldwide success with Where the Crawdads Sing (2018).

Beyond these well-trodden trails, however, are the much quieter tracks through the big-sky country of the CKGR’s deep south where it can be possible to drive for hours, even a day, without seeing another vehicle. This is where you find the few remaining villages of the San, who have lived in the Kalahari since the dawn of human time. Villages along the CKGR’s western fringe are also modern San towns where activities include nature walks in search of bush medicine, bush crafts and recreations of traditional ceremonies.

Khutse and Kgalagadi

Deep in the south, close to the Tropic of Capricorn, the CKGR spills over into the Khutse Game Reserve, a smaller version of the Central Kalahari and with the same combination of grasslands, salt pans and river valleys from another time. Try and avoid visiting Khutse on a weekend – as the closest park to the country’s capital city, Gaborone, the reserve receives plenty of weekend camping trips.

And then finally, close to where Botswana ends and South Africa begins, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park – which is shared between the two countries – is another Kalahari special of deep wilderness expanses, perfectly formed ancient lakebeds and wildlife that might include cheetah, lion, meerkat and the extravagantly horned greater kudu.

Where are the best places to go in Namibia's Kalahari? 

The Kalahari doesn’t cover as much of Namibia as it does in Botswana, but it remains a defining presence wherever you go. The sand-drowned eastern third of the country is all Kalahari, and although very few parks and reserves protect the Namibian Kalahari, very few people live here, wildlife roams free, and rock art – at Twyfelfontein further west, or the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Tsodilo Hills just across the Botswana side of the border – tell ancient stories of Kalahari abundance. Instead of national parks and game reserves, private farms, game ranches and community conservancies create a patchwork of protections – the best ones do a better job of many national parks thanks to their community engagement and conservation programs.

The exception, of course, is Etosha National Park. Deservedly considered among the elite of African parks, Etosha is filled with the nearly all-encompassing Etosha Pan and the park provides important refuge for large populations of gemsbok, giraffe, lion and elephants, all bathed in the chalk-white dust that is the essence of Etosha in the dry season. The park is also an exceptional place to see black rhinos that come to drink at the floodlit waterholes of many of the more popular camps. And conservancies like Ongava, Onguma and Etosha Heights private game reserves provide a more intimate safari experience while effectively expanding the terrain that Etosha has under protection.

Out to the east of Etosha, the predominantly San settlement of Tsumkwe is the Namibian heartland for the San. Guides take you out on expeditions into some of the most remote country anywhere in Southern Africa, teaching you about one of Africa’s oldest cultures as you go. Very few travelers make it out this way.

Where are the best places to go in South Africa's Kalahari?

The Kalahari dips into South Africa’s north, and although semi-arid echoes of the desert ripple deeper into the country’s interior, the Kalahari’s footprint in South Africa is relatively small. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park – about half of which lies within South African territory – is one of South Africa’s best parks with superb scenery: in all the Kalahari, it is Kgalagadi that has the most extensive sand dunes.

An intriguing alternative to Kgalagadi is Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province. South Africa’s largest private game reserve, Tswalu is a conservation star, and with just a handful of safari tents in over 1100 sq km, the reserve is like having the Kalahari all to yourself.