Most of our favourite lodges are on reserves to the west, like Sabi Sands, Timbavati, and Thornybush. And being private reserves, you can break all the rules you have to follow when you’re in the national park.
Your guide can go off road, meaning if a leopard is 100 metres from the main route they can drive right to it. You can go on night drives, when most animals hunt. And you can always get the perfect photograph. Rangers are often great photographers and know where to position vehicles, as well as how to predict photo opportunities.
Prepare yourself for some big names, as well as a few newcomers and more intimate, boutique lodges. You won’t be roughing it. Private reserves were the birth place of bush dinners, Champagne pit stops and outdoor free-standing bath tubs.
The Kruger’s private reserves are the perfect place to start if you’re new to safari. Because if the thought of witnessing a lion hunt doesn’t get your pulse racing, the show-stopping splendour of the lodges surely will.
The Kruger is where you’ll find all of Africa’s iconic safari species – elephant, lion, cheetah, rhino, buffalo, giraffe, hippo and zebra. (We’re not making any promises, but your chances of seeing leopards are higher here, too.)
