Kruger National Park, South Africa | Travel Guide & More

Safari in Kruger National Park: Need to know. Everything you wish you’d known before you booked

The pride of the South African safari is the Kruger National Park. It’s one of the world’s most famous conservation regions, and for good reason.

This enormous park (19,485 sq km) in the far north-east of South Africa is home to tens of thousands of mammals and birds, including vast quantities of all your African favourites.

Classic Africa beauty, safari activities that are equal to anywhere and limitless accommodation options and safari types available, from tented camps to luxury lodges. The park is easily accessible and has a great road system which makes it easy to navigate about.

This is safari made easy, perhaps too easy. The main roads in a park as good and easy to reach as Kruger are heavily visited and can be very busy in high season. And the park’s established infrastructure, too, means that sometimes it doesn’t feel all that wild.

If that seems a little off-putting, don’t worry: the national park is flanked by a number of great private reserves which have limited numbers and no self-drives allowed, which means wild Africa comes snarling right up to you. Taking all of this into account, whatever kind of safari you are looking for, Kruger usually comes out on top.

Kruger National Park Safaris

Kruger National Park is the king of South Africa safari, and for good cause. This is the classic African safari of your fantasy, home to tens of thousands of mammal and bird species, including all the big name favourites.

But what many first time visitors don’t realise is the stark disparity between Kruger National Park proper and the network of commercial concessions that surround the park. The governmental authorities manage the national park for the sake of conservation and they perform a great job. Accommodation within the park is nonetheless somewhat drab and as an open national park it can get exceptionally congested. There are no limits on the amount of tourists – notably day-trippers – so vehicles thronging around animals is distressingly prevalent and a wildlife sighting can rapidly lose its enchantment.

If you have another vision in mind, you may opt to visit one of the nearby private concessions. These conservancies are part of the Greater Kruger Ecosystem; they are not gated off from the national park and animals travel freely between them all but visitor numbers are much more closely managed and there are no day trippers and no crowding around the wildlife.

I believe the great part about the private concessions is the flexibility that you have there. Here you’re really off-roading, unlike the national park where you’re constrained to tarmac roads. You can’t get literally off the beaten path like this in the national park, when a leopard speeds by you can head into the woods to see where it ends up. But my favourite thing is a walking safari. No more looking through a window. No more running on the grass. No more hearing the gentle sounds of insects and wind rustling through leaves instead of an engine… It’s a completely new vibe. Believe me, it’s magic.”

There’s no denying it, a conservancy is a lot more expensive than staying in the national park. But don’t forget that you are directly sponsoring critical conservation efforts. My advise would be to go less nights but pay more per night in a conservancy – you would get a far more bang for your buck this way.

All the conservancies are fantastic, however if I was to have a fave I’d definitely choose Timbavati Game Reserve. Timbavati is highly rigorous on number of vehicles per lock (sighting). You can only have two vehicles so one has to exit before the other can enter the lock. This kind of control is a very different experience than Kruger National Park.

Timbavati is also home to wild white lions, a rare species found nowhere else. These lions are most often seen in Ngala in the southern areas of the reserve making for a unique and memorable sighting that not many other places can offer.

Where to stay in Kruger National Park

There is a wide range of lodging available in and around the Kruger National Park. The park itself accommodates all budgets, from extreme wilderness campers to lodges with a luxury royal seal (and a price tag to match). In general the greatest accommodation and best safari guides are to be found in the exclusive private reserves surrounding Kruger itself. Prices mentioned by such sites may seem high but do remember that they normally cover all activities including guided safaris in state-of-the-art vehicles, lunches and most drinks, as well as the conservation fees which help protect such remote areas.

Some of the top end recommended places include Singita Lebombo Lodge and the Rzoyal Malewane both in the Kruger National Park itself. You really can’t go wrong with any of the accommodation in the private reserves but some worth building your safari around include Thornybush Waterside Lodge in the Thornybush Game Reserve, Kapama River Lodge in the Kapama Game Reserve, and the Klaserie Sands River Camp and Makumu Private Game Lodge, both in Klaserie.