Kruger National Park Travel Forum

I have booked a trip to stay at the Protea Kruger Park in October with my wife and 14 yr old son. In the UK we have started to read about the increase in crime in particular car jacking between JNB and Kruger Park and now having second thoughts. Can anyone comment on the situation and provide any information on policing etc. Thank you

Why does the cynic in me believe that the original question was invented to give "brighthorizon" an opportunity to promote a website with which he/she is connected?.........

It is really sad that "crime_in_South_Africa" has attracted people who profit from this perception and thus perpetuate the perception to a large degree.

Tired of your old BMW? Allow someone to carjack you for a fee and claim the balance from insurance. Why an elaborate carjacking when a "theft" would be much cleaner? Because the car security systems make a theft almost impossible without damaging the car.

Gotten drunk at the pub and then trawled the red-light district where you got beaten up? Tell everyone you were carjacked, but that you valiantly fought off the attackers.

Private security companies put their armed response signs up everywhere. They couldn't care whether the house is protected by them or not - they want their signs up to generate more contracts. (I own a house without an alarm, on a prominent street corner - Chubb have signs on the one wall while ADT have signs on the other)

Sure, there is serious crime, but is it really at the levels that "advertisers" lead you to believe?

I assure you this is a genuine question from someone in London.

But thanks anyway.

Thanks for the idea. What airline would you recommend or website??

Paul, just after you had posted your first query, someone magically came along and offered an "IT"-solution to your concerns. The moderators have since removed the first reply.

Your concern on driving that route is equivalent of me being concerned about using the Underground trains - we read stories of bombers, fires, rats, beggars, police shooting innocents, pickpockets, sleeping train drivers, mind the gap, blah-blah-blah.

DAO's perspective as a visitor answers your questions, and I would agree with most of what he is telling you. He wonders if the smaller roads may attract more crime than the highways, but that is not the case. The highway robbers still ply their trade mostly on the highways - and his experience of that was fine.

I have become flippant about constant queries about the safety of travelling in South Africa. Imagine having to man an info desk at Heathrow and being asked 100 times a day if the Tube is safe? If he wants to keep his job, he has to smile and give a polite answer - I don't. :-)

ViVa Gerald D, it's always a pain having to repeat one thing over and over. My take it that all these guys concerned about crime to use the search facility and seek old crime feedbacks in SA.

Yes, they is crime in South Africa and yes it affects everyone including its citizens.

Below link about CRIME in SA should help:

http://members.virtualtourist.com/vt/ks/?s=crime+in+South+Africa&m=0&x=18&y=17

Hi Gerald D, I would just like to say that although I understand the cynicism regarding anyone talking about free services and although I am connected with the website that I mentioned, I am not in any way associated with Paulsmart and answered his questions about travel safety in good faith - I was genuinely trying to help. Since 2005 (before my VT membership was revoked yesterday) I have responded to many VT posts (mainly on travel safety) without reference to the free services on the site, but where travellers submit posts that are relevant, I point them in the direction of a (free) service that can help. I am connected with the website that I mentioned, but the services are FREE (like Hotmail and VirtualTourist are free) and many travellers (particularly young women) have benefited from using them.

I guess that this is a roundabout way of saying that I apologise to anyone who took offence or felt that I was somehow trying to hijack a post to promote a free travel safety service.

Paulsmart, good luck with your trip to PK Park... and wherever the rest of you are heading, enjoy the journey!

Thanks (and apologies once again)

Gavin

Um, Gavin, then why copy&paste most of the lengthy text to half-a-dozen other forums around the world within a few minutes of each other? That's spam, plain & simple.

Hi Gerald, again I apologise if my responses offended you.

Regarding spam, the key difference is that spam is unsolicited and almost always undesirable, whereas the VT members that I responded to were asking questions relating to their safety while travelling and I was responding with relevant (and solicited) information about their travel safety.

As you will know from your 3 years as a VT member, the same questions seem to arise over and over again, because as travellers we often face the same issues wherever we're from and wherever we're heading. When the question is essentially the same, it makes sense that the answer is also the same... a stock answer is not necessarily the wrong answer, (although where I have anything else helpful to add, you will have noticed that I have tried to do so).

Again, I can only apologise to Paulsmart, yourself and others for any offense.

Regards

Gavin

Hi, from all the answers above, it seems that "paulsmart" still is in the dark regarding his initial concerns. Paul, if you intend to drive around SA, make sure you have a reliable vehicle and stick to the main routes. Try not to stop at seemingly "deserted" spots, these may harbour a robber or two, especially where tourists are known to make such stops. Yes, crime is a problem in SA at the moment, but it is more prevalant in the densly populated centers. Nevertheless, risk is everywhere, as it is in any other country. I drive the route from Pretoria to Nelspruit (close to the Kruger)every week, and have not had a problem as yet - only those pesky speedtraps!!

Hi DAO, (This is Off-Topic for other readers)..

Remember your brush with the radars in Moz? I had one recently too....

I was following a Moz registered car going at a very good speed, thinking that they would trap him first and give me time to slow down. Lo and behold, a white-cap jumps out from under a shady tree and pulls him over. I slow down, but get pulled over as well. The 3 white-caps have a quick conference and then tell the Moz car to scoot. Then they show me the frozen reading on the radar gun and tell me it is my reading! But fair is fair, I was doing the same speed as the Moz car and I offered to pay the fine before any more words were spoken. 1000000 Meticais exchanged for a numbered receipt. (74 in a 60 zone).

Yes, it was the same document.

I actually have a lot of sympathy for the Moz officials who have to deal with tourists. The bulk of the tourists are a certain set of South Africans who treat Moz as the place where they can "let loose". These guys truck in their 4x4's, boats, food, liquor, servants to tear up a beach for a week or two. They pay the absolute minimum into the local economy. They don't respect the local laws and offer bribes whenever they can. It is a tricky situation that needs work from both sides.

You'll be fine, are you renting? If so I think you'll be safe unless your hire a top of the range motor. Have driven length of S.Africa many times and no trouble. Just take resonable precautions. Use the big well lit filling stations, don't leave the keys in the car ect.

Kruger is absolutely grt, you'll love it. stupidly i never brought binoculars so had to scrounge from others, u reall need them

Okay all local VT'ers shoot me if you must but here is my stock (cutnpaste) answer to this sort of question:

I'm about as sick from hearing this question about SA as I am about crime in SA. It's like asking a doctor when you're next going to have to visit him or when you're going to die. Nobody knows. There are some sweet South African souls on this forum and they have your best interests in mind and even if they were to rally up to help you when something goes wrong, which they probably wouldn't, the fact is the crime would have happened and you'd be the one to suffer. So my advice? Don't come to a crime riddled country if you're worried about it, go somewhere safe. That said this is a great country and the places you want to see are wonderful, but at the end of the day, visit at your own risk and don't for a minute think that because others say it's ok, it's ok, it's not ok when most people here can count on one hand the amount of people they know who have died or been shot, I can count 5 at least and I'm an upper class citizen not living in dire circumstances or inflicted by poverty, as were the people who were killed. Death by crime, happens in a second, and when it does all the clever little arguments about the beauty of SA fall horribly short and you're the one left suffering with little to no answers for the loss. Do I sound bitter? Er yes, I guess. I love my country but I'm not going to lie to tourists that it's safe, it isn't. Watch out, but have fun.

Crime in South Africa knows no race, social status, education, political connections, etc. It affects all that walks in two legs...

Myself have been mugged at gunpoint four times, just for the gadget known as a cellphone in broad daylight. All this happened while I renting out an apartment in Yeoville, moved back to Soweto seven years ago and have never been mugged.

Some areas don't have the UBUNTU spirit, whereby when robbed bystanders assist and beat the living hell out of a petty criminal.

An area like Yeoville, bystanders don't bother to intervene...the thugs rule. From my experience, the guys mug you and sell/exchange their stolen goods with the drug pushers for their next hit/fix.

In most cases the cause of petty crimes is drug abuse. There is just too much supply of the illegal substance in most corners of our society today.

Sebblit, what you say is 100% true. A nervous tourist asking if it is safe, is asking a dumb question. But, the actual incidents of tourists being attacked is way less than their nervousness warrants. Then again, a nervous tourist will probably be safer than a casual tourist. The tourists don't see the levels of crime that us locals do.