A row of green canvas tents lit from within at dusk, with lanterns marking a path through the grass and palm trees against a pink sky

Botswana · Makgadikgadi Pans

Jack's Camp

The 1940s never really left the Makgadikgadi. They simply moved into nine tents on the edge of the pans.

Jack's Camp is a nine-tent safari camp on the edge of the Makgadikgadi salt pans in Botswana, one of only three camps in a one-million-acre private wildlife reserve. Begun in the 1960s by crocodile catcher Jack Bousfield and rebuilt by his son Ralph in a 1940s style, it pairs Persian rugs, brass fittings and paraffin lamps with 270-square-metre tents, each with its own plunge pool. You come for the habituated meerkats, walks with the Bushmen, quad biking across the dry pans and, in the green season, Africa's second-largest mammal migration.

What is Jack's Camp known for?

Jack's Camp is known for its 1940s look: mahogany campaign furniture, Persian and North African rugs, brass fittings and paraffin lamps under green canvas and muslin, with a mess tent that doubles as a natural history museum. Its guides are trained by Ralph Bousfield, and Conde Nast Traveler gave the camp its inaugural Triple Crown, which covers the Hot List, the Gold List and the Readers' Choice Awards in one go.

The mess tent is where the camp explains itself. There is a library, a well-stocked drinks cabinet and an antique pool table, and on the walls hang framed Peter Beard pictures, original posters from the French taxidermist Deyrolle and a good many Bousfield family photographs. Dinner is served at a 36-seat table that did duty as an officer's mess table in the 1820s, which is a long way to have come for a plate of food. The long table is also why solo travellers do well here: nobody dines alone at an officer's mess, however hard they try.

Elsewhere there is a Persian tea tent that produces afternoon sweet treats, a shop for things to take home, and a swimming pool pavilion that Natural Selection describes as still the only one of its kind in Africa.

The tents are 270 square metres each, split evenly between indoors and out. Inside: a sofa and a day bed, hand-carved beds (two extra-length queens in the seven twin tents, an extra-length king in the two doubles), museum cabinets curated by Ralph Bousfield, an en-suite bathroom with indoor and outdoor showers, over-bed cooling, hairdryers, 24-hour power and Wi-Fi. Outside: a private deck with a plunge pool and swing beds looking over the pans. It is the kind of place where a cold plunge at midday and a paraffin lamp at dusk both feel entirely reasonable.

The story behind it matters. In the 1960s Jack Bousfield, crocodile catcher and adventurer, set out on a trapping expedition into the Makgadikgadi and pitched a simple camp at a spot that caught his imagination. Guests reportedly came as much to see Jack as the pans. After his death in 1992 his son Ralph founded the Uncharted Africa Safari Company in his father's honour and refurbished the camp in the 1940s style, kept as authentic as he could manage. Natural Selection now runs it.

The camp

Inside the mess tent: an antique pool table on a red rug, with two canopied swing beds and the pans beyond — The pool table has the best view in camp

The long dining table set for dinner under patterned canvas, with lanterns, campaign chairs and museum cabinets — Dinner at the 1820s officer's mess table

A guest tent interior with a striped sofa, a leather campaign table, a red armchair and a four-poster bed behind patterned drapes — Inside one of the nine tents

A plunge pool and swing bed on a private wooden deck under a scalloped canopy, looking out to the pans at sunset — The deck, around sundowner time

A guest sitting cross-legged with a cup of tea on cushions in the Persian tea tent, old maps of Africa framed on the wall — The tea tent, mid-afternoon

Photography courtesy of Natural Selection

When is the best time to visit the Makgadikgadi?

There is no wrong answer, only two different camps. The dry season, April to October, is for the pans themselves: white salt, mirages, nomadic herds in the distance, quad biking across the crust and sleeping out under the stars. The green season, November to mid-April, is when rain turns the pans to grassland and about 30,000 zebra and wildebeest arrive between November and March, with flamingos breeding on the pans in March and April. It is also Botswana's off-season, so it costs less.

Season	Months	The pans	What you do	Who turns up
Dry season	April to October	Shimmering white salt and mirages; herds in the distance	Guided quad biking across the salt crust; sleeping out under the stars; game and night drives; Bushman walks; meerkats	Desert specialists year-round: brown hyena, aardvark, black-maned Kalahari lion, aardwolf, bat-eared fox
Green season	November to mid-April	Rain turns the pans to grassland	All the usual activities continue; migration and flamingo viewing; heli safaris and horse riding	About 30,000 zebra and wildebeest (November to March); flamingos breeding (March to April); migratory birds. Botswana's off-season, so rates are lower

Natural Selection calls the zebra and wildebeest arrival Africa's second-largest mammal migration. It is a quieter affair than the Serengeti's, which is rather the point: there is nobody else out there to watch it with you. Helicopter flights over the pans run with the doors on or off, and the horse riding is offered on the grounds that it is how the earliest explorers crossed the place, which is true, though they did not have a plunge pool waiting.

If the zebra are the point, pair a stay here with Leroo La Tau on the Boteti River, where the same migration comes down to drink.

What wildlife lives at Jack's Camp?

The Makgadikgadi specialises in animals most safaris never see. Brown hyena (Natural Selection puts the world population at about 8,000), aardwolf, bat-eared fox, honey badger, aardvark and black-maned Kalahari lion share the reserve with gemsbok, springbok and black-backed jackal, and perhaps an elephant or two. The signature is the camp's habituated meerkat colony, the result of a project run with some of the world's leading researchers. The meerkats are still wild; they have simply stopped minding you.

Night drives go out once the desert crust has cooled, which is when the smaller carnivores do their best work. The green season brings the zebra and wildebeest, the flamingos and the migratory birds described above. If you want to check on the neighbourhood before you arrive, Natural Selection runs a 24-hour high-definition camera at the waterhole in front of camp.

Out on the pans

A guest in a wide-brimmed hat sitting on the ground beside a meerkat standing upright on the dry pans, a safari vehicle out of focus behind — The meerkats are still wild. They have simply stopped minding you

A group of Bushmen in traditional dress seated in a circle around a small fire under bare trees, clapping and laughing — On a walk with the Bushmen

Two quad bikes raising dust as they cross the flat salt pans under a pale sky — Dry season: the pans by quad bike

Two people beside a campfire on the open pans at night under the Milky Way, a safari vehicle parked alongside — Sleeping out, dry season

A herd of wildebeest and zebra in long grass at first light, palm trees on the horizon — The green-season arrivals

Aerial view of a large flock of flamingos wading across shallow water on the flooded pans — Flamingos on the pans, March to April

A Makgadikgadi lioness in the green season

Photography courtesy of Natural Selection

Getting there and practicalities

The camp runs on solar power with careful waste management, and a stay helps fund Natural Selection's conservation work in the Makgadikgadi, including its large mammal migration programme and an aardvark project. Laundry is included. Spa and wellness treatments are available at additional cost.

For a sense of how the Makgadikgadi fits into a longer Botswana trip, read our Botswana field notes.

Updated 20-Oct-2026

Jack's Camp

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