Kalahari Red Dune Route — SA's warmest welcome
A red dune on the route, its windward face rippled by the wind
Northern Cape · South Africa

The red dunes, and everyone who lives on them

Thirty-nine farms, guest houses, lodges and camps on the road from Upington to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Find one. Talk to them yourself.

Scroll — the dune becomes the map
Our own satellite map Click a name to open that place. Fourteen of them sit on top of each other at Askham — zoom in and they separate. Tap a name · pinch to zoom in at Askham
The route

This ancient and beautiful land is not one place

Here you will experience first-hand the red dunes and dry riverbeds, open spaces, star-studded nights and camelthorn trees that give the Kalahari Red Dune Route its name. It reflects an endless variety of moods, and each encounter is refreshingly different from the last.

The colour of the dunes in the southern Kalahari comes from the high iron oxide content of the sand, which leaches out and turns the desert a wonderful variety of colours. That iron is the reason the map above looks the way it does — it is our own satellite imagery of this district, graded to the colour of the ground underneath it.

Wind ripples and animal tracks across red Kalahari sand
Wind ripples and tracks — the surface of the route
39Places to stay,
eat or be shown around
18Things to do,
each run by someone here
255Kilometres of R360,
Upington to the gate
34Reachable on WhatsApp
in one tap
Stay
All 39 places →

From a grass hut to a lodge with a landing strip

Chalets on the ridge at dusk — Kgalagadi Lifestyle LodgeLodge & camp

Kgalagadi Lifestyle Lodge

Thirty-three chalets, a restaurant and a store — five kilometres from the gate

6 km to the gateSelf-cateringCamping+4
The lodge and the pool — Torgos LodgeLodge

Torgos Lodge

Stone and tented chalets seven kilometres short of the Mata Mata gate

131 km to the gateSelf-cateringCamping+1
The salt pan at sunset — Koppieskraal Camel FarmCamel farm

Koppieskraal Camel Farm

Camping on ten thousand hectares of salt pan, surrounded by nothing at all

112 km to the gateCampingDark skies+1
The farmstead at sunset — Kalahari Farmstead & CottageFarmstead

Kalahari Farmstead & Cottage

A nine-bedroom farmstead for twenty-six, with no lights and no traffic

146 km to the gateSelf-cateringGame viewing+1
The hotel — Van Zylsrus HotelHotel

Van Zylsrus Hotel

Nine rooms, Kalahari cooking, and a bar that has heard everything

222 km to the gateA table to eat at
The lodge under the Dark Sky Sanctuary — !Xaus LodgeGame lodge

!Xaus Lodge

Twelve chalets deep inside the park, at the heart of Africa's only Dark Sky Sanctuary

65 km to the gateSelf-cateringGame viewing+2
Do
All 18 things →

It is said no two visits to the Kalahari are the same

Kalahari veld and dune streets seen from the air
Dune streets running north-west, seen from the air
The R360

255 kilometres, and the last of it is the best

The route starts 50 km out of Upington on the R360 and runs north to the gates of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. At Andriesvale the R31 cuts east toward Van Zylsrus and west toward Rietfontein and the Namibian border.

We have laid every place on the route against the actual road, so you can see what is where before you leave home.