Phinda Private Game Reserve

My time here was amazing. I did not stay at any of the lodges, so I cannot speak of the quality of the accomodation, altough I've heard it is excellent. The wildlife here is fantastic, and I saw a lot without looking too hard, both in terms of large mammals and in terms of birds. The scenery is awesome and classic Africa!

More than we expectd

This was an amazing few days. The time in the early mornings and late afternoon going out in the bush were beyond what we expected. It was a great time of year to be around the park as the weather was not too hot and visibility was excellent. We were lucky to see th big 5 and many, many more animals and birds besides. Phinda itself was a lovely place to stay with lovely friendly &helpful staff,great accommodation and terrific meals.

Best Rhino viewing, great accomodation, great guides. Black Rhino Walk, great scenery (maybe the best).

Everything I'd hoped for, and more!

Phinda Private Game Reserve was the first stop on my South African Honeymoon trip. At the end of that trip, I joked to my travel agent that she should always schedule Phinda as the last stop in every tour since nothing you visit after that is going to match up!

Our accommodation was the Phinda Vlei Lodge - a luxurious secluded collection of six cottages with excellent views of the wildlife across the grassland while you take a dip in your private pool. Once you're done with that, the chef Happiness cooks up a stunning meal and later serves it with the biggest smile on her face.

And then there are the game drives. Our tracker and ranger, Muzi and Darren, made an excellent team and we saw a wide variety of wildlife on our six game drives, including four of the big five. We missed out the leopard, but our car did spot one on the first day when we had opted out of the drive as we'd travelled 18 hours to get there. Had we not been so tired (read: "lazy"), we'd have caught all of the Big Five.

The forest at Phinda is beautiful and varied. There's grassland, sandforests, hills, and such other beautiful variety of landscapes too. And the best part, easily the highlight of our stay there, was going for the optional Turtle Trip. Late in the evening, we were taken to Sodwana Bay and we spent a good three hours driving on the beautiful beach searching for turtles in the moonlight. It was a magnificent experience, bettered by the fact that we managed to spot a Loggerhead Turtle that had come on to the beach to lay her eggs.

If ever I get a chance to do so again in my lifetime, I'll definitely visit Phinda once again.

Luxury Accommodation and Terrific Wildlife

We stayed at Phinda Vlei for three nights in Oct 2007. The accommodations were very luxurious and very comfortable. We were very happy with the game drives taken and enjoyed abundant wildlife sightings. Although a private reserve, it is still large enough with varied terrain to avoid redundancy when staying multiple nights. We'd certainly recommend it.

As perfect a safari as I could imagine

This was an absolute highlight of my visit to South Africa. The variety of wildlife was simply unreal as we saw every animal that I could possibly think of. It's a beautiful location with a combination of open expanses, hills and forests, plenty of dirt roads to get you into the middle of the reserve and rarely was another safari vehicle seen during the 3 days we were there.

The accommodation is five star and involves private villas in the middle of the reserve, each village as luxurious as can be. Transportation involved excellent condition, super comfortable safari vehicles and our guide and animal tracker were knowledgeable, friendly and just brilliant people to spend time with.

Two visits 2011 and 2012 great place for game specialy for cheethas