Where to spend time with southern Africa's oldest peoples on their own terms: community-run places, ancient rock art, and how to visit respectfully.
The San have lived in southern Africa for tens of thousands of years, and their rock paintings cover cliffs from the Drakensberg to northern Botswana. Today about 160,000 San people live across five countries, most of them in Namibia and Botswana. Several communities now welcome visitors and run the experience themselves. Choose those places, and your money supports the people you came to meet.
Sources: population and languages (Wikipedia, citing national censuses), !Khwa ttu (Cape Town Magazine), Museums Association of Namibia and South African Tourism, checked 2 November 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you go.
Some tours still treat San people as a spectacle, with little of the money reaching them. The places below are owned or run by San communities or their trusts, employ San guides, and put earnings back into the community. Before you book anywhere else, ask who owns it, who guides, and where the money goes. The San's land rights are still debated; in Botswana, moves of residents out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve led to a long court case, and the government says the moves were voluntary.
A heritage centre and museum on the West Coast, with exhibitions created with San communities and tours led by guides of San heritage, including food and tracking walks. The easiest place to start.
About 70 km from Cape Town on the R27; open daily 9:00 to 17:00
A community-owned lodge deep in the red dunes of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, with game drives, dune walks, night-sky outings and dawn tracking with ‡Khomani San guides.
Stay at least two nights; about 100 km from Twee Rivieren gate
An open-air museum where Ju/'hoansi families share bush skills, crafts, songs and stories in hands-on programmes. You can try shooting a bow or Ju/'hoansi rope skipping.
Nine programmes, N$50 to N$600 per person
A lodge, campsite and wildlife area at D'Kar run by the Kuru Development Trust, a San organisation. Revenue pays staff and community projects such as fresh water and a preschool.
On the overland route between Maun and Namibia
Four hills in the north-west with more than 4,500 rock paintings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 and sacred to the San and Hambukushu who live nearby.
Remote; best reached by 4x4 or light aircraft
Hundreds of rock shelters with San paintings of eland, hunters and rain animals, some thousands of years old, protected in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg World Heritage Site.
See it with a guide at a rock-art centre
The Kalahari is a semi-desert of red dunes and grassland, with big swings between day and night.
Pack for hot days, cold nights and long walks on sand.
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