“I’ll be out here journaling,” I call to my friend, Maggie, as I nestle into our balcony’s river-view lounge chair. I know stringing together sentences will be tricky. We’ve just returned from a sleepless “sleepout” beneath the Milky Way core in one of the world’s largest salt flats, Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans.
My coffee still hasn’t worked its magic, but despite my fatigue, I crave deep reflection. It’s the final day of our nearly two-week adventure through Botswana with safari operator Desert & Delta. Our immersive itinerary packed the awe, from half a dozen golden hours spent watching elephants slurp from the Chobe River to an Indigenous San–led trek around Tsodilo Hills, a series of towering quartzite with hundreds of rock art sites that date back millennia.
This luxury safari lodge in Botswana is the best place to see a migration of 30,000 zebras in Africa
I thought I’d reached my lifetime quota of wonder on this morning’s scenic helicopter jaunt from the salt-pan sleepout back to our accommodation, Leroo La Tau Lodge along Botswana’s Boteti River. I had no idea what was in store.
I scan the Boteti between journaling thoughts, expecting the same scene I’d enjoyed the previous morning: a few zebra here, a crocodile or two there. Yet in the distance, a dust cloud is gaining steam. Its catalyst, I realise, is a herd of zebra — and they’re getting closer. Soon, the black-and-white-striped beauties emerge atop the river bank like soldiers readying for battle. Within minutes, dozens, and eventually hundreds, of zebra parade down to the lodge’s waterfront. By the time I’ve grabbed my camera, a chorus of hee-hawing wildebeest and trumpeting elephants have joined.
“It’s the zebra migration!” I whisper to Maggie, who raced from her failed mid-morning nap to watch the spectacle, nicknamed Africa’s “secret migration.” Her slack-jawed expression confirms my suspicion: we’ll have to skip lunch.
For safari buffs, few sights beat the great wildebeest migration. A mind-blowing concentration of roughly 1.5 million of the creatures follows seasonal rains between Tanzania and Kenya. I’ve been fortunate to witness the marvel during several Serengeti safaris, and it’s well worth the hype. Yet after watching the congestion of tourist vehicles near the Mara River in 2022 — a problem that some conservationists fear could impact the wildebeest’s transit — I began to research migration alternatives.
The journey of Botswana’s zebra captivated me. In 2014, biologists with WWF and Elephants Without Borders discovered that Burchell’s zebra travel more than 300 miles (482.80 km) through southern Africa, between the floodplains of the Chobe River and Nxai Pan National Park, just north of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.
This movement of 30,000-some zebra is the longest-known land mammal migration in Africa, according to WWF’s report on the research. In recent years, scientists have confirmed the zebra travels another track, directly between the Okavango Delta and Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. That puts Desert & Delta’s Leroo La Tau Lodge in the heart of the action.
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“This is where the zebra regroup,” Mathale “Metal” Mosheti, our guide, tells us as we watch the herds congregate by the river. Given the mind-blowing wildlife concentration surrounding the lodge, we skipped the afternoon drive to nearby Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Instead, Mosheti joins us for a stationary safari in the lodge’s cosy game-view hide, a panoramic perch built into the river bank.
“Zebra spend much of their time here accumulating numbers and waiting for the rain,” Mosheti said, his voice largely drowned out by the cacophonous barks and brays of zebra. This area, including the lodge’s private roughly 1,600-foot expanse of riverfront, acts like a meeting place for the creatures. Many migrating zebra spend about half of the year here, from around mid-April to early November. They congregate and wait for rainfall. When the time comes, they meander along dispersed migration routes to follow the green grass before reuniting back near this Leroo La Tau home base.
Yet zebra aren’t the only ones flocking to the lodge’s secluded ribbon of the Boteti. The morning may have started with an abundance of zebra herds — also known as dazzles or zeals of zebra — but it’s evolved into a Noah’s Ark-like afternoon, complete with elephants, wildebeest, crocodiles, hippos, giraffes, kudu, and fish eagles. Just as mind-blowing as the wildlife diversity is admiring the scene sans crowds.
This seclusion is largely due to Leroo La Tau’s post off the main tourist track, says Stephen Frenkel, marketing and sales manager for Desert & Delta Safaris. “The zebra migration is well-known for the area, but when you look at that in the bigger picture, it’s still very much a hidden gem of the northern Botswana safari experience,” Frenkel says. That means overtourism, so far, is not a concern, he says. Visitor numbers are low, and the handful of other properties in the region are well dispersed.
Desert & Delta acquired Leroo La Tau, which translates to “lion’s paw” in Botswana’s national Setswana language, around 15 years ago. It’s a collection of 12 thatched-roof suites, each complete with a private balcony and a full glass-walled side overlooking the river — perfect for watching the zebra migration from bed, the shower, or your balcony.
In 2023, the company refurbished the property to elevate the migration-viewing experience. “The idea was to lean into the highlight of the migration, in combination with [the region’s] big blue skies and wide-open spaces,” Frenkel says.
The nature-inspired aesthetic continues into the lodge’s main dining area, a spacious wood-finished room with vaulted ceilings and a loft library above the bar. Outside, the leadwood and acacias that ring the river-view fireplace are a collection of logs and branches elephants have pushed down around the lodge.
Perhaps the most exciting enhancement for zebra-migration travellers: an upgraded viewing hide, which is now just as much about fun as it is wildlife-viewing function. The perch has more tables and chairs, the option for private dining, and, when the stars align, sundowners among a who’s-who of African animals.
Stationary experiences, like the game-watching hide or Boteti-view balconies, complement safari drives in neighbouring Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Leroo La Tau guests can see numerous species along the lodge riverfront, but it’s rare to see big cats like lions. “The lion is an ambush predator; they will not bother or waste their energy to try their luck here because it’s open,” Mosheti says. Instead of hunting near this open waterway, they patiently wait in the national park, where the hiding spots are better. Other predators visible there include hyenas, cheetahs, and jackals.
Back at the lodge, a lack of predation and noisy safari vehicles lets you watch the animals in their natural states. “When you see an animal in any park unless they’re quite habituated to vehicles, they will stop what they’re doing to watch you or change their behaviour or pattern,” Frenkel says. Swooning over species from the viewing hide — or porch, shower, or bed — means the animals come to you, on their terms. They’re interacting as they would without human gawkers, hence the flurry of elephant and zebra scuffles that add drama to the Planet Earth documentary unfolding before our eyes.
“When you’re watching the migration in this sense, it really does provide an opportunity to see exactly what their natural engagement is and what their natural idiosyncracies are,” Frenkel says. “It’s an authentic migration experience.”
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(Feature image credit: Stephanie Vermillion/Travel + Leisure)
This story first appeared on travelandleisure.com
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