Kruger National Park is definitely one of the coolest places I have ever been. I think visiting both the park in general and Sabi Sands really gives you the most out of the experience. Sabi Sands is in the “Greater Kruger Park” area, so it is a part of Kruger National Park, but it is a private game reserve. This means that different resorts own the rights to all the property in the Sabi Sands area. This means that they can drive all over the land, whereas at Kruger National Park, you have to stay in the roads. Essentially, you get to see animals closer and “track them” as they travel on the resort’s land. Sabi Sands is a lot more expensive than staying in Kruger National Park, however. The great thing about Kruger National Park in general, though, is how large it is. So you can self-drive for miles. But I would definitely recommend doing both Kruger National Park and Sabi Sands.
Kruger National Park (KNP)
KNP is about a 5 to 6 hour drive from Johannesburg airport. You can fly from the Johannesburg airport to a couple of airports at KNP, but after a 8 hour flight, I was not eager to get on another plane. Plus I remember the flight being pretty expensive ($500 maybe?) and we planned to rent a car anyway, so it made more sense for us to drive.
We got into Johannesburg airport at 6PM on a Wednesday, spent the night at an airport hotel, then drove to KNP Thursday morning. The drive isn’t bad. There are a lot of rest spots along the way. The thing you need to remember, though, is KNP closes its gates at 5:30PM (it stays open later in the summer). I made the mistake of interpreting this to mean that you needed to be in the KNP by 5:30PM. However, this also means you need to be inside your rest camp gate by that time as well. The only vehicles allowed in KNP at this time are private tours arranged by your rest camp. We didn’t know that, which was a good thing because both days, we actually had the best animal sightings between 5PM & 6PM.
After driving from Johannesburg, we finally got through the KNP gate around 4PM. There are several different gates to get into KNP and then its at least an hour drive once inside the park to get to your actual rest camp. As soon as we got through the gates, we saw a bunch of elephants! We also saw a lot of impalas and other antelope-type animals. They’re all so cute, but you lose interest in them fast because they are everywhere and then you want to see the more exotic animals. Then we were looking at some rhinos on our right hand side when suddenly five more appeared from our left and blocked the road. After a stand-off for a few minutes, we turned off our headlights and they went away. By that time it was getting dark, but we saw several hyenas right before our rest camp. All of those animals we saw just driving from the gate to our rest camp (about 1 hour).
I chose Skukuza rest camp to stay. It’s the largest rest camp and has a really good restaurant. Lower Sabie is the best rest camp to stay in that general area, but it was already booked when I was looking to make reservations. Lower Sabie is known for having a good restaurant and cheetah sightings (I didn’t see any cheetahs during my trip). But the restaurant at Skukuza is the best and the views were really pretty. I did have one issue though. The first night I was in my bungalow, I kept turning off the light and trying to go to bed but would hear squeaking. Well one of the times I turned on my light, I saw a bat flying! I was sleeping with a bat!! So I barely slept that night since I kept the light on to keep the bat from flying around and I slept under my covers! The next morning, the people at reception said it was common to have bats in your bungalow and no big deal because it was just a fruit bat. Since they were all booked up, I had my stepfather switch bungalows with me the second night and the bat did not make an appearance, thankfully. I really do like bats. I just don’t want to sleep with one.
The next day, we took a route south that went from Skukuza to Lower Sabie to Crocodile Bridge. We saw our first (and only) hippopotamus running through the brush. It looked like a statue at first. My big hope, though, was to see a lion. I knew they rested during the day so all day, I was looking through the brush to maybe find a sleeping lion.
But I saw so many animals driving that route. Dozens of Cape Buffalo walking around, crossing a river, crossing the streets. That seems to be one of the animals from “the big five” (IE lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and cape buffalo) that people often don’t get to see. The animals were dubbed “the big five” by hunters because they proved to be the most challenging to hunt.
We saw so many zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, warthogs, and several elephants. Its so amazing to see so many animals right in front of you and walking on the side of the road. The giraffes just look so much bigger than the ones in the zoo. They also aren’t knobby kneed like a lot of them at the zoo. And they don’t stick out their tongues when they eat because their instincts are to protect their tongues. Unlike in the zoo where if there were an infection, a vet could easily administer medication.
So then finally after driving around all day for about 6 hours, we were a couple miles away from our rest camp as it was starting to get dark, a little past 5PM. And while I’m once again searching the brush for a sleeping lion or two, suddenly, a pride of 13 lions comes strutting down the middle of the road towards our car! No other cars were around, it was just us and them. There were two males and 11 females. A lot of them would walk, and then briefly lay down, then get back up again. They paid no attention to us except when they got to the back of the car, which they would sniff. But it was so amazing seeing all of that! After that, we ran into 40 baboons that wouldn’t let us pass, just chilling in the road. Then the babies jumped on our car and started climbing up. We had to beep the horn to get them to jump off.
So by the time we got back to our rest camp, the gates were closed. Luckily the guy was understanding after we explained about the animals in the road and let us through. We learned later they often fine people who come late after the gates have closed, mainly if the people are South African. I guess we seemed like clueless tourists so they just told us not to let it happen again. Would have still been totally worth it, though, even if they did give us a fine.
Sabi Sands
So because I waited until 5 months out to book instead of like a year, I had an extra two days in between Kruger and Sabi Sands since Sabi Sands accommodations books up quick! Sabi Sands is a private game reserve, as I mentioned. So this basically means the lodges are privately owned and the safari vehicles can track on their property only or if they have a contract with other properties to drive on their land. My safari guide actually told me there is one land owner who rents out the right to drive on his land to those who cater to tourists and he makes six figures a month! Just from that!
There are very few people on a safari and staying at each lodge. The bigger the land that the lodge owns, the less people who stay there, the more it is going to cost obviously. So knowing all of those things, it makes a little more sense that to stay at one of these private game reserves, it is going to cost you $500 per person per night on the low end and some game reserves with a lot of land, only a handful of people and fancy amenities can literally go into several thousand per person per night. But I went with a “cheap” one for around the $500 per person per night.
The one I chose was Umkumbe and it was such an awesome experience. I picked two days because one felt too short and three was starting to just get way too expensive. Honestly I could live the safari life forever. You basically wake up at 5AM, go on your safari ride until 8AM, have breakfast (all meals are included), lounge around the pool until lunch time, have lunch, then go on your evening safari and then have dinner when you get back. Umkumbe has about 13 different “lodges” with different animal themes. We had the zebra and the giraffe rooms. In the evenings after dinner, they have to “escort” you to your rooms to look out for animals since they are literally in the middle of the game reserve. The first night I was so worried about taking a shower. You guys, the showers are outside with a little barrier. The water comes from a tree branch looking thing. And they had to escort us to our rooms, so obviously its possible animals could be around. So what if a leopard hears the water running, looks over and sees the water coming from a cool tree branch he wants to climb? And there I am, stupidly taking a shower? I mean it made a lot of sense to me. Outside showers look all fancy and fun until you realize there are leopards out there.
The safari tracking is so fun. Especially the evening ones because you’re in this really fun open air vehicle, driving through the brush while the sun is setting. The morning is great too, but it is a lot colder. Luckily, my safari guide liked me so he let me sit in the front with him and put on the heat for me. It is realllly cold up top with all of the wind blowing as you are riding. So I would advise sitting in the front for morning drives and then up top for evening drives. You also have a “tracker” for your evening drives since you are riding around in the dark and he sits right in front of the passenger seat.
I just can’t even tell you how much fun these drives are and how peaceful. The sunsets are truly unreal. One night there was a strawberry moon on one side and the orange and pink sky on the other side. The first time out, we saw a leopard! Sabi Sands is known for having leopards, but not lions. Several years ago, there were basically a couple of dominating cannibal lions who would kill male lions and babies so the population went down. Eventually, they killed the lions who were making all the trouble and the population is starting to return. But Sabi Sands is known more for spotting leopards rather than lions, so that’s why you should do both Sabi Sands and Kruger, since lucky for us we saw the 13 lion in Kruger.
We saw a lot of hyenas at nighttime and saw a lot of sleeping giraffes and elephants. The giraffes sleep with their legs tucked under them, so they are very vulnerable while they are sleeping if attacked since their complete neck is exposed. My favorite animals to see at Kruger were the giraffes. But it was the elephants in Sabi Sands. I loved hearing them crunching branches and then watching them pull leaves off of the trees to eat, then crunching some more until they got to a different tree. We were often right next to them while they did this and they would cross in front of our safari jeep. My favorite elephant I saw was on the second night as the sun was setting. He had a gash by his tusk and one by his eye. Our safari guide observed he had probably just came from a fight and lost. He was probably the biggest elephant we saw during the trip also. And all of the other times you saw an elephant, there were at least a few others around. But he was all by himself, walking alone as the sun was setting, you could even see the defeat in his eyes.
Another animal I saw more of in Sabi Sands than Kruger was Kudu. They are everywhere. They are so big and unique looking. You also saw more groups of animals together and lots of different birds. The safari rides are just so much fun. Halfway through your drive, your guide stops and everyone gets out to have snacks or coffee and you can go find a bush for a bathroom break. The food is also really good. By far were the safari rides my favorite trip excursion of all time. I could totally live the safari life. Much better than any beach or city trip. I definitely want to go to Africa for more safaris, maybe in Namibia or Botswana next!
There were still so many more amazing things we did in South Africa. I will write some posts on the Panorama Route, the Garden Route and Cape Town. South Africa is seriously so amazing. Its crazy how places like London, Paris, and New York are more popular than somewhere this magical. I posted my itinerary and advice for planning if you ever want to plan a trip there.
