Kruger National Park Travel Forum

Hi everyone,
we 3 people from Czech Republic going to Mozambique in the beggining of July. We want to stop for 1,5 or more days on our way in Kruger. We are travelling on budget. I would like to know following:
- what type of car do we need to go within Kruger (2WD/4WD,...)
- is it easy to find accommodation in the park (I suppose to stay in tents/camping)
- we will visit the southern part. Which places would you recommend?

Many thanks for your replies!!

Martin

Look at the answers to Ness076's post in this forum you should get you answers there.

The best places to see animals is in the southern half. 4X4 is NOT neccesary. Roads are paved and dirt roads are graded & fine for 2X4 . AC is nice to have though. The cheapest accomadations are thru South African Nat'l Parks at the fenced camps within the park (Bungalows and camping). Getting accomadations can be tough because they book 11 months in advance. Forget school holidays. If you are flexible, a good way to go is cancellations 1 month before your visit. Go to the site (sanparks.org), then call (don't bother with emailing them). Good camps are Lower Sabie, Satara, Olifants, Talamati, even Skukuza (we saw 4 of the 'big 5' on a 3 hr. sunset drive there!). Otherwise you can find accom. outside the park and drive in each day. The animal population is dense! You will certainly see many animals no matter where you stay (in the south).

Beginning July is school holiday.

Martin,

I was in KNP last August and had a great time. This is some information about the park, I hope it helps some.

We stayed in the Lower Sabie rest camp, Oliphants rest camp, Skukuzu rest camp (are least favorite...very busy with people and commercial), Tamboti tent camp (our favorite, very secluded...heard lions roaring at night...you can stay in a safari tent and not see anyone else) and Satara rest camp. We booked all of our accomadation through the KNP website which is:

http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/tourism/accommodation.php

The rest camps each offer a variety of accomadations from tenting to lodges. We stayed in huts, bungalows and safari tents. All were very comfortable in our opinion. We also met great people along the way.

I would recommend vising the Lower Sabie, Satara and if you have time Tamboti. We did see the least amount of animals the closer we got to Tamboti, but it was fun to stay there. Animal viewing of course depends on the timing, but we saw the most animals near the Lower Sabie camp, but we saw many lions near Satara. I believe the Satara area is known for lions though. Along with the animals the park itself has much more to offer. Just being there is amazing. Like I said Skukuzu is not worth it. We saw way more cars than animals in this area!

I would say the sooner you book the better, because I believe July is high season in the park. We booked our accomadation in April for our August stay and had a hard time find places to stay on the weekends. Though it is high season, we still could go an hour and not see another car in some areas of the park. I believe they only let a certain number of cars the park each day, but if you have accomadation you are allowed in. I could be mistaken.

We had just a regular car, but it would have been to have something 'higher' but if you are on a budget a car is fine! The restcamps offer game drives also (pretty reasonable price). We did only one which was a morning drive, which was fun because it gave us an opportunity to get out into the park during the dark. We did see all of the animals that we saw on the game drive that we did just self driving.

I visited Prague/Praha last summer and how beautiful it was. We also saw some country side and hope to return one day! Good luck on your Africa safari, if you have any other questions feel free to ask.

I have some pictures and information on my KNP page that may help you some and also I would stay for at least 4 days!

Stay well

Nichole