The safari capital, used properly

Maun: the last town before Moremi, and how to use it

Name: Moremi Game Reserve
Address: Botswana

Maun calls itself the safari capital of Botswana, and for once the slogan is simply a job description: a Kalahari town of about 55,000 that fuels, feeds, banks and books every trip into the Delta. It is also the last of all of those things. Past the Shorobe veterinary fence there is no fuel, no shop worth the name, no ATM and no fixing a missing booking, so an organised day in Maun is what a good Moremi trip is built on.

If you only want the answer

Treat Maun as a working day, not a stopover. Fill every tank and jerry can, buy all your food and water at the supermarkets, draw pula in cash for the gate, and make sure your Moremi campsite booking already exists, because the gate will not admit you without one and high-season sites sell out 6 to 8 months ahead. Sleep at Audi Camp, Thamalakane River Lodge or Grays Eden depending on budget, leave early, and the 92 km to South Gate takes about two hours: 40 km of tar to Shorobe, then dirt, gravel and deepening sand.

Fuel first: fill everything

There is no fuel anywhere inside Moremi, and Maun is the last reliable supply, so the first errand is the fuel one: fill the vehicle and every jerry can, sized to your whole reserve circuit plus a genuine reserve margin. The deep sand past South Gate roughly doubles consumption against tar, which is why our cost research budgets about 70 litres of diesel for a 400 km camping loop, at the P20.93 a litre Maun was charging on 7 September 2026.

Do not build a plan around buying fuel after Maun. Overlander reports mention informal fuel at Khwai village at roughly double the pump price, when it exists at all, and that is a rescue, not a strategy. If you are continuing north over the classic Khwai, Savuti, Chobe traverse after Moremi, the arithmetic gets stricter still: the next reliable pumps after Maun are in Kasane, several hundred sandy kilometres away, so the jerry cans you fill here are carrying the whole journey.

Supermarkets, pula and ATMs

Provisioning is genuinely easy here, which surprises people expecting a frontier outpost. Maun has proper supermarkets: Spar in the IGI Centre, Choppies, Shoprite and two Woolworths food stores, plus bakeries, butcheries and camping-supply shops serving the safari industry. One stop covers a full camping trip; the only shop after town is the basic one at Third Bridge campsite, which you should treat as emergencies only. Buy fresh meat and eggs here with a clear conscience for the trip north, but know the veterinary rule: you may carry them from Maun into Moremi, and you may not bring them back south through the Shorobe fence.

Money is the errand people underestimate. Moremi's gates take Botswana pula in cash, and only pula in cash: P270 per person per day for non-residents at the 2026 Category A tariff, P75 a day as the working figure for a foreign vehicle, plus camping fees, all charged every calendar day including the day you leave. At roughly P13.5 to the US dollar that is real money for a family, so draw it in Maun, in small notes, from the bank ATMs in town; the commercial banks cluster around the malls, and the Kwalate booking office sits above the FNB in the New Mall, which tells you how central the banking is to the safari errand run. The one card option is prepaying park fees at the DWNP office in Maun, which issues a voucher you show at the gate; do not rely on any card machine at the gate itself.

The booking trap: Moremi is sorted before Maun, or not at all

Here is the single most expensive misunderstanding in Botswana self-driving: you cannot enter Moremi without a confirmed campsite reservation, and the campsites cannot be booked at the gate, and mostly not even in Maun on the day. The four public campsites inside the reserve are DWNP-owned but privately run, each by a different concessionaire, and none of them can be booked through DWNP: Kwalate Safaris holds South Gate and Xakanaxa, SKL Camps holds North Gate, and the Xomae Group holds Third Bridge. Availability opens about 12 months out and the popular sites sell out 6 to 8 months ahead for June to October, so the real booking work happens by email from home, months before you land.

What Maun can genuinely do for you in person, checked against the operators' published details on 13 September 2026: the Kwalate office above the FNB in the New Mall (+267 686 1448) and the Xomae office (+267 686 2221) both take walk-ins, useful for confirming, paying or catching a cancellation, and the DWNP office handles park-fee prepayment by card. The Khwai Development Trust in Maun (reservations@khwaitrust.co.bw, +267 686 2361) books the community campsites on the reserve's northern boundary, which are the usual fallback when the reserve itself is full. What Maun cannot do is conjure a June to October site that sold out in January; if you arrive in high season without a booking, your realistic options are Khwai community sites or day entries from outside, not a night at Third Bridge.

One 2026-specific check before you commit: Third Bridge stayed closed after the record 2026 floods and we have found no confirmation it has reopened, so call Xomae before you build a loop around it, and ask each concessionaire about current track conditions while you have them on the phone. They know more than any website, ours included.

Campsite	Concessionaire	How to book
South Gate (Maqwee)	Kwalate Safaris	Email ahead; office above FNB, New Mall, Maun (+267 686 1448)
Xakanaxa	Kwalate Safaris	Email ahead; sells out 6-8 months ahead for June-October
Third Bridge	Xomae Group	Email ahead (+267 686 2221); confirm post-flood reopening first
North Gate (Khwai)	SKL Camps	Email ahead; sells out 6-8 months ahead for June-October
Khwai community sites (outside)	Khwai Development Trust	reservations@khwaitrust.co.bw (+267 686 2361); the usual fallback

Concessionaire assignments and contacts from the operators' own materials and Botswana booking guides, checked 13 September 2026. Park entry fees are separate and paid at the gate in pula, or prepaid by card at the DWNP office in Maun.

4x4 hire, and where to sleep the night before

If you are renting rather than shipping your own vehicle, Maun is the natural pick-up point, and the operators are real and established. Travel Adventures Botswana is Maun-based and owner-managed, renting fully equipped Land Cruiser campers with 24/7 local backup, and its office also arranges campsite bookings and park fees, which neatly solves the booking trap above. Bushlore, the big South African self-drive specialist, runs equipped Land Cruiser and Hilux campers with a Maun depot and one-way options toward Kasane and beyond. Both were confirmed operating on 13 September 2026; neither's rates are printed here because hire pricing moves with season, vehicle and days, so quote it directly.

For the night before the park, Maun covers three price classes properly. Budget: Audi Camp, the long-running camp on the Thamalakane River about 12 km from the centre, with campsites, dome tents and en-suite safari tents, the classic overlander staging post. Mid-range: Thamalakane River Lodge, stone-and-thatch chalets on the river 19 km north-east of town, from $190 per person bed and breakfast on its dated 2026 to 2027 rate sheet, with secure parking and an activity desk, the natural bookend for a self-drive. Top: Grays Eden, the boutique hotel that opened in 2024 ten minutes from the airport, with garden rooms and Maun's first wine cellar, the place to land softly before or after the sand.

One closure to know about: Old Bridge Backpackers, for two decades the default budget answer in Maun, announced an indefinite closure and is marked permanently closed, though some booking platforms still list it. Do not prepay anything there; Audi Camp has inherited its role.

The drive to South Gate: tar, then sand

The run to the reserve is 92 km and takes about two hours, and it changes character exactly once. The first 40 km to Shorobe are tar, past the last herds of donkeys and the buffalo-fence checkpoint where the veterinary rules bite. At Shorobe the tar ends, and the remaining 52 km to South Gate are dirt and gravel that soften into sand as you go, with game thickening past the fence: expect about 30 minutes on the tar and around an hour and a half on the rest. A high-clearance 4x4 is essential, not advisable; the sand past the gate rules out everything else.

Time it against the gate, not the map. Moremi's gates run 06:00 to 18:30 from April to September and 05:30 to 19:00 from October to March, and you must be in a campsite outside those hours. Leaving Maun at 06:00 puts you at South Gate around 08:00 with the day's paperwork, fees in pula, and still the whole day for the slow internal tracks, which matters because South Gate to Third Bridge alone is another 3 to 3.5 hours. Arriving at the gate at 15:00 with two hours of sand driving still ahead of you is how people end up setting up camp in the dark in an unfenced reserve.

Leg	Distance	Time	Surface
Maun to Shorobe	40 km	±30 min	Tar; veterinary fence at Shorobe
Shorobe to South Gate	52 km	±1.5 h	Dirt and gravel, sandier as you go
South Gate to Xakanaxa	42 km	±2.5 h	Sand track, minor water crossings
South Gate to Third Bridge	58 km	3-3.5 h	Sand, via First and Second Bridge

Distances and times from our route research, gathered July 2026. After the record 2026 floods, check current track conditions with your campsite concessionaire days before you travel, not weeks.

The provisioning list: what you cannot buy after Maun

Everything on this list is Maun or nothing. The reserve has no shops beyond the basic one at Third Bridge, no fuel, no pharmacy, no signal for most of its area and no cash machines, and the gate wants pula in hand. Work through it the afternoon before, sleep, and leave at first light.

All food for every day in the reserve, plus at least two spare days' worth in case you get stuck
Drinking water in bulk; do not plan around campsite taps
Fuel: full tanks plus jerry cans sized to your circuit, doubled consumption in sand priced in
Pula in cash, small notes: park entry, vehicle fee and camping fees for every calendar day including departure day
Your campsite confirmation, printed; you will be asked for it at the gate
Gas canisters or cooking fuel, and firewood if you want a fire
Offline maps downloaded and a paper map (Tracks4Africa); there is no signal in most of the reserve
Recovery gear checked in town: traction boards, tow rope, compressor, two spare tyres if you can
First-aid kit and all medication; the nearest pharmacy is behind you
Fresh meat and eggs for the trip north only; they cannot come back south through the Shorobe fence
Rubbish bags: carry out everything you carry in, and skip citrus, which draws elephants into camp