Chobe Game Lodge is the one to book if you want water, comfort and something coming past while you sit still; Nogatsaa Pans Chobe Lodge is the one if you want the remote interior of the park, a hide over a pan and the patience that goes with it. Both are inside Chobe National Park. They simply answer the park differently.
Updated 10-Nov-2026
That is the short version. The longer version is worth having, because the two lodges are close enough on a map to be mistaken for alternatives and far enough apart in temperament to be two different holidays.
What is the case for Chobe Game Lodge?
Chobe Game Lodge is inside the park, which is the first thing to know and, for many people, the only thing they need to know. What it has done with that position is build itself around places to sit: expansive viewing decks, a private jetty, and a lounge along the boardwalk, none of them far from wherever you happen to be.
Each gives you a different Chobe. From a deck it is a wide view. From the jetty it is the water and whatever is using it, and the lodge’s own pictures show what that tends to be: elephants climbing out of the river, a lioness with a cub. From the boardwalk lounge it is the bush at close quarters with a drink in hand. Between game drives a guest could work through all three and call it an afternoon well spent.
The lodge describes itself as a haven of peace and tranquillity, and in a national park those are not idle words. Chobe can be busy in the best sense. The lodge is where the busyness stops.
What is the case for Nogatsaa Pans?
Nogatsaa Pans Chobe Lodge sits in the heart of the park, in a section that has stayed remote and largely untouched, and it is built around a much older idea of what a safari is. The landscape is open grassland dotted with clay-bottom pans and waterholes, and the area has been fitted with hides overlooking them, so the game viewing begins before the vehicle does.
The lodge itself looks over Kwikamba Pan, the largest of the many pans that pattern the area. A pan is a patient place. Animals come to it on their own schedule, and the correct response is to sit still and wait for the schedule to reveal itself. The pictures on its page are the kind that reward that patience: a breeding herd at a tent’s doorstep, a lioness and her cubs drinking, the main deck at dusk with the lanterns lit.
The phrase the lodge uses is a safari reminiscent of yesteryear. For once that is not nostalgia for its own sake. It is Chobe in the old style: in the bush, at eye level, waiting by water.
How do the two lodges compare?
| Chobe Game Lodge | Nogatsaa Pans Chobe Lodge | |
|---|---|---|
| Where in the park | Inside Chobe National Park | The heart of the park, remote and largely untouched |
| The water | The river, from a private jetty | Kwikamba Pan, the largest of many clay-bottom pans and waterholes |
| Where you watch from | Expansive viewing decks, the jetty, a boardwalk lounge | Hides over the pans, and the doorstep of your tent |
| The idea | A haven of peace; where the busyness stops | A safari reminiscent of yesteryear |
| Seen on its page | Elephants out of the river, a lioness and cub, the bath | A breeding herd at a tent’s doorstep, a lioness and cubs drinking |
Water and comfort, or quiet and waiting?
That is the real question, and it is worth being honest with yourself about the answer. Chobe Game Lodge is for the traveller who wants the game to come to the water and wants to be sitting somewhere comfortable when it does. The jetty does the work. You bring the drink.
Nogatsaa is for the traveller who is happy to sit in a hide for an hour watching nothing, on the understanding that nothing is often followed by a great deal of something. It asks more of you and, in the view of people who like that sort of thing, gives more back. Some of the best game viewing in the park is quite literally on the doorstep. The trick is to remember to open the door.
Could you do both?
You could, and in the same park it is a tidy combination: the river and the decks first, then the pans and the hides, or the other way round depending on how you like a trip to end. Neither lodge’s page gives the distance between them, so ask before assuming it is an easy hop. If you would like to weigh them against the rest of the country, the Botswana pages are the place to start, and we are always happy to talk through which Chobe suits you.