Jack’s Camp is the best-known name on the Makgadikgadi, and the one most responsible for the idea that the salt pans are a destination in their own right. Nine tents sit on a one-million-acre private reserve, styled to a 1940s expedition aesthetic that is either wonderful or a great deal, depending on your taste.
Quick facts
- Area
- Makgadikgadi and Nata
- Property type
- Tented Camp
- Setting
- Private reserve on the edge of the Makgadikgadi salt pans
- Nearest park or reserve
- Makgadikgadi Pans National Park
Tents at Jack’s Camp
Nine tents: seven twins with two queen beds each and two doubles with a king, taking eighteen guests. Each tent runs to about 270 square metres with a private plunge pool on its deck. There is 24-hour electricity and over-bed cooling.
Facilities at Jack’s Camp
A swimming pool pavilion, a Persian tea tent, a library, a natural history museum, a vintage 36-seater dining table, spa treatments and Wi-Fi.
Who it suits
Travellers who want the pans experience at its most produced, and anyone whose priority is meerkats, quad biking or the desert rather than big-cat game viewing.
Location and access
Fly-in from Maun is the usual route. The camp operates year-round, unlike its seasonal sister San Camp.
The meerkats are habituated, not tame
A researcher-habituated meerkat group will use a sitting human as a lookout post, which produces the photograph everyone has seen. They are wild animals that have decided people are furniture. That distinction matters: the encounter depends on the group being findable that morning, and no camp can promise it.
Why the pans are a dry-season and wet-season destination in different ways
In the dry months the pans are a white void you can quad-bike across and sleep out on. After good rain they flood shallowly, the flamingos arrive and the zebra migration moves in — but the surface becomes impassable. Neither is better; they are different trips, and you should book knowing which one you want.
Check availability around Makgadikgadi and Nata
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Plan the rest of your trip
Read our guide to Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, or the wider Makgadikgadi.
