4 Day 4 Day Deep Kgalagadi Luxury Fly-In Safari

Once you’ve arrived in Johannesburg and cleared customs and immigration, you’ll find a representative from African Sky waiting for you as you enter the arrivals hall. First, we’ll take care of a few formalities. Our representative, an experienced guide, will also gladly answer any questions you may have. Once formalities are completed you’ll be escorted to the appropriate departure terminal and assisted in boarding a local flight of around ninety minutes to Upington in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province, the main gateway town for the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

In Upington you’ll be met and transferred by road to the remote !Xaus Lodge, set in a private community-owned concession inside the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. On arrival at the lodge, you’ll be warmly welcomed and, after orientation, assisted with settling in. The purpose of visiting !Xaus is to escape the world, placing yourself in a location so remote that nothing of the outside world impacts your day-to-day activities. Later in the day, you’ll enjoy your first guided activity into the Kgalagadi wilderness, typically a late-afternoon game drive that pauses at a remote dune for sundowners before continuing into the evening to look for nocturnal wildlife under the desert sky.

!Xaus, meaning “heart” in the Nama language, was established in 2002 after an agreement was reached with the South African government. The !Ae!Hai Kalahari Heritage Park Agreement restored some 50 000 hectares of land within the boundaries of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to the Khomani San and Mier communities, helping them to improve the quality of their lives through conservation and responsible tourism. At !Xaus Lodge, your stay directly supports these communities while giving you access to a truly remote desert environment that very few travelers ever experience.

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park itself is an immense desert reserve of more than 3.5 million hectares, almost twice the size of the Kruger National Park and comparable in area to small European countries such as the Netherlands. Jointly managed by the South African and Botswana wildlife authorities, it protects rolling red dunes, grassed pans and sparsely vegetated fossil riverbeds that receive low, erratic rainfall, supporting desert-adapted wildlife like black-maned Kalahari lions, cheetah, leopard, brown and spotted hyena, large herds of gemsbok, springbok and wildebeest, and excellent raptor sightings.

While staying at !Xaus, your activities typically include morning and afternoon game drives, after-dinner drives in search of nocturnal species, guided dune walks and a visit to a San craft village to meet local artisans and learn about their culture. Thanks to the park’s extreme remoteness, clean air and almost total absence of light pollution, stargazing from the lodge’s deck or the surrounding dunes is exceptional, with brilliant views of the Milky Way and the constellations of the southern sky.

After breakfast, you’ll say goodbye to your hosts and take a final look over the red Kalahari dunes before departing !Xaus Lodge. You are driven back along the dune road to the Auob River and on to Upington, retracing the route through the Kgalagadi’s vast fossil river valleys and wide horizons. The drive normally takes around three hours, depending on wildlife sightings and photo stops along the way, and offers a last chance to look for gemsbok, springbok or birds of prey along the road.

On arrival in Upington you connect with your scheduled flight to Johannesburg, the main gateway city for international departures. After landing at O.R. Tambo International Airport, your Deep Kgalagadi Fly-In Safari comes to an end, though the sense of desert silence, starlit skies and community hospitality at !Xaus Lodge will linger long after you’ve left South Africa.