Kruger National Park

Kruger is a known park for a reason, a great wild life, but every thing is coming with a price.

Kruger National Park have a great wildlife range and the place is huge, the animals in this place have a lot of freedom because it's so big and while you travel there you don't see any parts of the fence which give you a better touch of nature. If you go off the paved roads you will have much better feelings of nature and unlike other parks you will not need 4X4 to enjoy this version of nature.

In Kruger you can see a lot of animals and better chance for the great golden animal, the Lion, when I came into the park the first time after 10 minuets I saw 3 Lions together. Very nice in Kruger is the shelters for people to watch birds and other "little" animals including Hippopotamus.

The main problem in Kruger because the famous of the park and because the great things in this park is that if you see something spectacular normally you will find your self with another couple of cars around you. And as much as you go north there is less cars if you want to get a way from them.

If I look overall on my visits in Kruger park I don't think the problem with the other people is a very big deal because you get a lot there.

Great wildlife - tons and tons of animals accompanied by beautiful trees and plants. There were paved roads, lots of tourists and you could drive your own car in, but that didn't deter me from loving my trip to Kruger. The park is the size of a small country, so there is PLENTY of room and lots of places to go. The wildlife, scenery, accommodations, food, transportation, guide...everything was put together well for a wonderful trip. We traveled in a big truck that had tons of seats and room and a top. We camped in permanent tents at night and had bathrooms with running water right next to us. The food was all included, but the whole group helped cook the meals. Our guide was great and knew a TON of information about the park, but was also quite funny! I completely 100% recommend Kruger as a safari destination.

Undoubtedly South Africa's best safari destination!

If it's the Big 5 you're looking for in quite an extensive area, you can't go wrong with a Kruger National Park (KNP). You can not cover the whole park in a day - or two, or three - so I usually plan a tour spanning at least 5 days. If you're on a self-drive, firstly by a map. Take care - some of the older maps only cover the park up to Letaba - the older size of the KNP. Any of the Kiosks in the park sells a complete map in book format which also contains additional information for each specific area, as well as a summary of birds and mammals with pictures included. Also, if you can - buy a Wildcard. If you stay for a few days then it will cost you less than the conservation fees to be paid when entering the park. And entry to the park will be free.

I usually enter the park at the southern Malelane gate and sleep over in a different camp every night, exiting the park at one of the most northern gates (eg. Pafuri) on my last day. That gives me the opportunity to cover all of its habitat ( bushveld in the south, mopani bushes upper middle and raw bushveld north) and animal variety (from my experience rhinos and raptors occur mostly in the southern half of the park and smaller bird varieties in the north-most parts).

Lower Sabie is a good choice to start off your tour but avoid the tent-chalets in case you run into bad weather and and 'adventure' ends up in a sleepless, worrysome night! Lower Sabie has a beautiful restaurant with river view. Skakuza is also a well established camp - just make sure that utensils are supplied as some of the booking options don't. Satara is also well established and my favourite camp in the park. All your needs are catered for in the chalets and it also has a nice restaurant if you do not want to self-cater. The roads around Satara cover my favourite routes - make sure you get onto the S36 just north of Skukuza on your way to Satara. It's a reasonably long drive along a dirt road so pack a picnic basket and enough drinks for the day and start your trip as early as possible (6:00am at the latest). When at Satara, ensure that you drive along the S100 closeby - early morning as well as at dusk. It always has a surprise in store as far as lions / leopards are concerned! I suggest staying over at Satara for more than one night due to the abundance of wildlife in its vicinity and ample roads to go and look for them.

Take the S40 further north and keep your eyes open for the big cats. Stop for a rest at the Timbavati picnic spot and be aware that similar to the other official picnic spots in the park, you're proveded with free gass barbeques here if you have the ingredients for breakfast with you. And you don't even have to clean it yourself after use!

Sleep over more than one night at Elephants Camp. It has a great restaurant if you don't want to self-cater and the view is the most beautiful in the KNP - overlooking the Olifants River from a hillside. Raptors patrol the hillside in abundance from early to late so if you want to photograph Yellow-billed Kites, vultures and other eagles then this is the place to be. The bats enter the scene in droves at sunset and the kites actually wait for that moment, catching a snack just before bedtime!

I have not slept over at Letaba yet but it's one of my favourite stops for brunch / lunch at their restaurant overlooking the Letaba River. I have not slept over at Mopani yet but I usually drive through to Shingwedzi. This has a few nice dirt roads to be discovered in the area. Travel the S52 a bit to the south to Red Rocks. It has another official picnic spot close by with a nice river view and again - free cooking facilities.

The last sleeping spot is Punda Maria. But be aware - you have only community cooking facilities here and a little less privacy as all units are in 'barack' format. In other words, your room is adjacent to two other rooms on your sides. The roads in the vicinity do not disappoint yet again and be on the lookout for the big 5.

Pafuri is the northern most and one of my favourite areas in the KNP. Ever wished you could travel roads reminding you of the old Tarzan movies? This is the place! Unfortunately the Pafuri camp had not been restored (yet in 2015) after heavy floods in 2013 so if you want to sleep over in this area (which I highly recommend!) then book into the Pafuri River Camp 4km outside of the park and drive into the park early in the morning (and thank me for recommending the wildcard!). Drive along the S63 as early as possible and be prepared for something you'll never see again in your life! Up to about 8h30 thousands (I'm not kidding!) of crocodiles lay on the river banks waiting for heat from the rising sun. Just as many hippos show themselves and move along the shifting tree shades until it gets too hot, after which the croc's and hippo's disappear below the water surface and you'll never guess that the river is infested with them!

In general I'm not too fond of official day drives but do it once or twice just to say you've done it. The field guides provide great information about anything around you and who knows - you might just bump into a big cat feast or even witness a kill. Do a night drive as well as you'll see some nocturnal animals.

Enriching Kruger Park experiences

Wow - what an experience. With self drives (setting your own pace) or game rangers driving, this was the highlight of our trip. Though we went in early winter (May), some parts in the north still reached 35 degrees Celsius, whereas the southern parts got down to 12 degrees (in the evenings). It was a very wet summer so spotting animal were sometimes difficult, but the camps provided enough details of where to look. Talking about the camps - sleeping in a "rondavel" in the camps is probably the best option, allowing you to see animals at sunrise and sunset (no racing before the gates close). But be warned, allow for at least 5 days to enjoy the full experience of the Kruger.

astonishing

7 day trip, good guide, good accomodations, good travel partner. Saw 4 of the big 5.
We did a 2day trip through a special gamereserve. There where the most beautifull encounters with wildlife.

A fantastic, memorable experience of South Africa's wildlife

We first visited the Kruger in July 2015 with Wildwings Safaris (staying at Skukuza and Satara) and had such an amazing time that we visited again in August 2016 (staying at Letaba, Mopani and Shingwedzi). Kruger is huge (about the size of Wales or Israel) so there is plenty of habitat to support a wide range of wildlife. We had excellent views of the 'Big 5' and other great wildlife such as Wild Dogs, Honey Badgers, Sable, Roan antelope (north of Shingwedzi) and Tsessebe. Both visits took place during the southern winter (dry season) and the weather was dry, warm and sunny with game viewing easier then due to the drier vegetation. We stayed in the SANParks rest camps and these were an ideal base, with handy shops for buying your own groceries if self-catering or restaurants if not. There was also a petrol station at each camp. Our guide with Wildwings Safaris (Simon) was excellent and really enthusiastic - it was like he was on holiday with us! He was also a keen birder (as am I) so it was great to be able to stop and enjoy plenty of Kruger's varied birdlife too. They also arranged our other accommodation in South Africa flawlessly - I can't recommend this company highly enough. We also enjoyed the SANParks evening/night game drives and bush walks, which provide an alternative way to see the bush after the gates have closed and a chance at seeing something unusual, such as Porcupine, Genet and Side-striped Jackal. We love Kruger and will definitely be back again.

This is an exceptional large South African Park to take at your own pace.

Spending a week in Kruger National Park earlier this year, having last visited as a child, was an awesome experience. The park is large so at no time is there a "canned" experience. As we used our own vehicle we were able to go at our own pace. I am a keen photographer so the ability to shoot from your own car (with a bean bag) is pleasure as being on the back of a truck can bring its own challenges. Less then two minutes into the park we saw lion! However, just being in a typical South Africa bush brings me joy and Kruger Park delivered this same experience whether the more unusual animals were around or not. We had fantastic beautiful, still, warm weather and spent every day and evening in shorts. We stayed at Lower Sabi in the tented accommodations and then in chalets at Berg en Dal. The tented accommodation (wooden structures with canvas sides) at Lower Sabi is on the river and couldn't have been more beautifully situated. The only small complaint was that neither of the camps were well equipped but that was a small price to pay. Baboons tore their way into our tent at Lower Sabi when we were out one day and the staff immediately apologised and cleared the huge mess they had made. The staff couldn't have been more accommodating in this regard and the camp does its best to keep baboons away. One of the things that makes the park so good is that the roads follow the river as much as they can, allowing good viewing.

Beautiful Scenery and Relaxing Safari Experience

I spent about three days driving through Kruger National Park on a tour bus as part of a University class trip. I loved that each night we stayed at another one of the campgrounds and we stayed in various types of camping cabin conditions from a nice cabin with a loft to permanent tents to little round huts with just beds.

The wildlife was not always abundant, but I liked the experience of looking for the wildlife and the excitement of seeing it. From the tour bus we saw a several of the Big Five during our trip including elephants, wild buffalo, and lions. I was among the few that decided to take an early morning safari on our last morning and we got to see our only rhino. Best of all we got to see a leopard in a tree right off the road, so we ended up seeing all of the Big Five during our trip. While it can be hard to see all of the Big Five in Kruger, the trip was great even before we lucked out and saw all of the Big Five on our last morning.

The scenery is beautiful and somewhat varied as you drive through the different parts of Kruger National Park.

I enjoyed that we took it slow getting to the campgrounds by mid afternoon and having the evening to relax. There was often still wildlife spotting opportunities at the campground including one that overlooked a large clearing. I enjoy identifying different bird species every morning while most were still sleeping using the little wildlife guidebook I picked up at the first gift shop we stopped at in Kruger. Most of the campgrounds had nice pools to swim in and cool off.

12 days photographic trip to Kruger National Park

The wildlife in the park at times was a bit sparse, which could have been because of the drought when i was there but we always found something around the next corner, but mostly plenty of animals around.The first few hours every morning was the most productive.The accommodation was clean and tidy. At Oilfants it worth getting a bungalow with a view of the river. You could get what you needed from the shops (milk, bread, meat, sweats). The restaurants where fine, not a lot of options but the steaks where the most consistent over 4 camps and was cooked perfectly.I would highly recommend a self drive trip to the Kruger Park, and staying 2 to 3 nights in each camp so you can get the most from each area.The weather was around 26 to 36c most days with one night off rain. To get the best from a trip to Kruger you need to put the time in and keep looking and at times just stop and just wait.

The Gem of South Africa

Took me two days to find the big 5 and saw a abundance of other wildlife including beautiful birds at the different hides throughout the park. Some places have amazing scenery like the Most Southern Baobab and the Fever Tree forest up in the north of the park. Weather was sunny with high temperature, had a few days of rain aswell but mostly clear sky’s. Chalets were clean and cleaned while driving for the day. Food is great in Skukuza and Lower Sabie but other camps like Satara was not the standard you would expect but still decent enough. We drove with our own vehicle and it was fruitful. Most leopards were spotted in the south of the park. I would recommend going to Kruger if your native to South Africa or from abroad, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.