Kubu Island is one of the most surreal and awe-inspiring places in Africa: a granite outcrop crowned by baobabs over a thousand years old, stranded in a sea of white salt that stretches to the horizon. It looks like a stone ship run aground in a dry ocean, or a set from a science-fiction film. Its Setswana name, Lekhubu, means 'the island', and that says it all: when you see it rise out of the flat expanse of Sowa Pan, you understand why.
Kubu isn't just a geological oddity. It has been a sacred site since time immemorial: San peoples visited it and probably held initiation rites here, and its southern part holds mysterious, ancient dry-stone walls. Its slopes are terraced by old beaches of pebbles rounded by waves, fossil proof that this 'sea of salt' was once a real lake. Today it is a National Monument of Botswana, looked after by the Mmatshumo community.
This practical guide explains how to visit such a special and fragile place: how to get there by 4x4 (dry season only), where to pay the Gaing-O Trust community fees, what to see on the island (the ancient baobabs, the stone walls, the fossil beaches, the sunsets and the starry nights), and how to camp responsibly and self-sufficiently in one of the most magical corners of the Makgadikgadi salt pans.
Kubu Island is a granite outcrop more than two billion years old, crowned by ancient baobabs, rising on the edge of Sowa Pan, the bed of the ancient prehistoric Lake Makgadikgadi. Its terraces of wave-rounded pebbles are the fossil imprint of that great vanished lake. It was a sacred place for the San peoples, who called it Ga'nnyo and held spiritual rites here, and its southern part holds dry-stone walls whose origin is debated (some link them to the Great Zimbabwe culture). Declared a National Monument, it is now looked after by the Gaing-O Community Trust. Our history page tells its geological and human story.
Read the full history ↓The great sea of sand and the remains of a prehistoric lake: ancestral land of the San, endless skies, ancient baobabs and white salt pans that stretch to the horizon.
Read the history of The Kalahari and the salt pans →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Kubu Island begins in a past so distant it is hard to imagine. The granite outcrop on which the island stands formed more than two billion years ago, deep in the Earth's crust, as magma slowly cooled and crystallised into this hard, ancient rock. It is one of the oldest materials a traveller can set foot on: far older than complex life, older than the dinosaurs and, of course, older than humankind.
For aeons, that rock stayed buried or exposed as geological cycles came and went, until erosion and movements in the land left it outcropping on what is now the southern edge of Sowa Pan. Kubu's granite, which resists erosion, was left standing as a rocky 'island' rising from the surrounding plain, a geological feature that nature took an eternity to sculpt.
That extreme age is part of the place's mystery. Standing on Kubu, among baobabs that have lived for thousands of years and stone walls that are centuries old, on a rock billions of years old, in the middle of a salt pan that was once a sea, gives you a dizzying sense of how small you are against geological time. Few places in the world pack so many timescales into a single landscape.
The name Kubu (Lekhubu, 'the island' in Setswana) is not a poetic metaphor: hundreds of thousands of years ago, this granite outcrop really was an island, surrounded by the waters of the great Lake Makgadikgadi. That palaeolake, fed by ancient rivers such as the proto-Zambezi and the Okavango, covered huge stretches of what is now northern Botswana, and Kubu rose from its waters as a rocky islet battered by the waves.
The evidence of that inland sea is etched into the island itself. Its slopes are terraced with bands of small pebbles, rounded and polished exactly like the ones waves shape on any beach: these are fossil beaches, old lake shores, and their different levels mark how high the water reached at different times. Walking along them means walking the beaches of an ocean that vanished thousands of years ago.
When the climate dried out and tectonic activity diverted the rivers that fed the lake, the water evaporated and left behind the salt flats that surround Kubu today. The 'island' was left stranded in a dry white sea, like a stone ship run aground. That contrast between its watery past and its desert present is one of the keys to understanding the magic of this place and of all the Makgadikgadi pans.
Long before the tourists arrived, Kubu was already a special place for the peoples who lived in the region. The Khoe called it Ga'nnyo, and there is evidence that the San (Bushmen) visited the island and probably held initiation rites and spiritual ceremonies here. In the middle of the flat, featureless vastness of the pan, this baobab-crowned outcrop must have stood out as a powerful place, full of meaning, a meeting point with the sacred.
Archaeological digs confirm a long human presence: stone tools have been found that, as at other spots around Makgadikgadi, date back to the Stone Age, when the lake still brought the area to life. Over thousands of years, the island was a refuge, a lookout and a sanctuary for hunter-gatherers and for the communities that came after them.
That sacred character is not just a thing of the past. The local community of Mmatshumo, which now runs the site through the Gaing-O Trust, keeps alive the idea of Kubu as a place that deserves respect. That is why visitors are asked to explore it with care, without damaging the trees or the structures and without taking stones or objects away: it is not just a tourist viewpoint, but a space with centuries of accumulated spiritual value.
One of Kubu's biggest mysteries is the stone structures that survive on the southern part of the island: dry-stone walls, up to just over a metre high, enclosing a roughly square space. Who built them, when and why? The answer is not entirely clear, and that only adds to the fascination of the place.
The most widely accepted theory links them to the island's ritual use: they may have served as an enclosure for ceremonies, perhaps the initiation rites for young people that tradition associates with Kubu. But there are more ambitious theories. Some researchers have cautiously suggested that the walls may have some connection with the cultural sphere of Great Zimbabwe, the powerful Shona kingdom that flourished between the 11th and 15th centuries and left impressive dry-stone buildings in what is now Zimbabwe. Kubu would have sat within that world's trade routes and sphere of influence.
Whatever their exact origin, the walls give Kubu a historical and archaeological dimension on top of its geology and its natural setting. Together with the stone tools found at the site, they tell us that this 'island' in the sea of salt was, for a long time, a place lived in, revered and worked by human hands. Its declaration as a National Monument of Botswana is meant precisely to protect that fragile, irreplaceable heritage.
Today, Kubu Island is both a National Monument of Botswana and a model of community tourism. It is run by the Gaing-O Community Trust, made up of residents of the nearby village of Mmatshumo, which collects the entrance and camping fees, looks after the sites and puts the income towards benefiting the local community. It is an example of how a sacred, fragile place can open up to visitors without losing its character, as long as they explore it with respect.
For travellers, Kubu has become one of Botswana's cult destinations: those who make it here (by 4x4, only in the dry season, after crossing the pan) are looking for exactly what it offers, which is the opposite of mass tourism. There are no luxury lodges, no organised activities, no crowds: just silence, ancient baobabs, fossil beaches, mysterious walls, and sunsets and starry nights that take your breath away. It is a contemplative destination, a place to switch off and be amazed.
Kubu's main challenge is conservation. Its remoteness protects it to some extent, but growing tourism and the odd disrespectful visitor threaten its baobabs and its heritage. That is why the community and the authorities insist on the rules: take all your rubbish with you, do not damage trees or stones, and do not camp outside the designated sites. Looked after this way, the island will remain what it has been for thousands of years: a unique place where geology, human history and landscape merge into something almost supernatural.
