Kruger
A park the size of Slovenia that you drive yourself, charged by the head and by the day — not by the car
- When to go
- October 24° · 6 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 44 km Phalaborwa · 79 km Hoedspruit
- Right now
Kruger is driven in your own hire car, on tar and gravel, without a guide, and you sleep in camps inside the gates. Entry is paid per person for every day in the park, so you plan it as a trip: the number of days, the camps and the gate you enter by.
The daily fee for a foreign adult is €32, for every day inside, and gates and receptions take cards only. The annual Wild Card for foreigners costs €250 and covers every national park in the country; for Kruger alone it pays off only from the eighth day, so it is worth pricing when Cape Town's Table Mountain and peninsula are in the plan too.
You drive yourself, under rules that carry fines. The limit is 50 km/h on tar and 40 on gravel, with speed traps and patrols; you leave the car only at marked places; you must be in camp or out of the gate before closing, because being late brings a fine, and a second time a permanent ban from SANParks parks. Gates open at dawn and close at dusk, so the times shift month by month. An ordinary car is enough for the main road network.
Night drives and walks are the only two things you do not do alone here; both are led by SANParks guides and booked at camp reception. The private reserves along the western boundary, Sabi Sand and Timbavati, have had no fence with Kruger since 1993, so the animals move freely between them. The choice is between your own car and a camp, or a lodge and a guide.
Guides for Kruger
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
The best time to visit Kruger
→The dry season gives you animals, the green one colour and newborns — and that is the only decision Kruger really asks…
What to see in Kruger
The south, around Skukuza
Skukuza is the largest camp and the park's headquarters, on the Sabie river, with a shop, restaurants, pools, a golf course and an airport. That makes it the simplest base for a first visit.
The centre, around Satara
The open basalt plains east of Satara feed big herds of zebra, wildebeest and impala, and the lions follow them — this is their highest density in the park.
The north, around Punda Maria
The Olifants river splits the park into two ecological zones, and north of it mopane scrub covers almost the entire north-east. You come here once the south has been seen.
Sabi Sand and Timbavati
Private reserves along the western boundary, unfenced from Kruger since 1993. You sleep in private lodges, and they are the answer when the camps inside the park are full.
A night drive from camp
Two to three hours after sunset, in an open vehicle with a spotlight — the one way to be out in the park after the gates close. Booked at camp reception.
A guided walk
A walk from camp with two armed guides. Booked at reception like the night drive, and the only way to be on foot in the park outside a camp fence.
Two things you probably did not know
Kruger is about the size of Israel, two million hectares with over seven hundred kilometres of tarred roads. You can drive through it in your own car without a guide, which is rare in Africa.
Around twenty thousand elephants live in the park, and one adult eats up to a hundred and fifty kilograms of plants and drinks two hundred litres of water a day. Their numbers are watched and capped. Too many elephants turn woodland into savannah.
Ready for Kruger?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Kruger — day trips or weekends.
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Johannesburg, Fish River Canyon and Windhoek
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Kruger if you have been.
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