Planet Baobab

Planet Baobab sits just outside Gweta, a small village on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans in central Botswana — two hundred kilometres from Maun and two hundred and ninety from Francistown. It takes children of all ages and offers two types of accommodation: traditionally built Kalanga huts, each with a private bathroom and Afro-chic interiors finished with African blankets and cotton sheets, and a shaded campsite with shared facilities. Eighteen rooms in total.

The central building runs as a bar and restaurant with an à la carte menu, styled loosely after a shebeen. The pool alongside it is large — the claim is that it is the biggest in the Kalahari, which you will be inclined to believe after a day on the pans.

Activities split by season. Year-round, you can walk with a group of habituated meerkats, join a guided baobab bush walk, visit a local cattle post or village, or take a day expedition to Nxai Pan and the Baines Baobabs. From late April to the end of October — the dry season — quad biking runs across the Ntwetwe saltpan, and the camp organises sleep-outs under the Makgadikgadi night sky. From November through April, the wet season brings the zebra and wildebeest migration to the area.

The camp accepts walk-ins but activity slots, particularly quad biking and the meerkat walks, are worth booking ahead.