Planning a Safari in South Africa’s Private Game Reserves

So, you are finally ready for your bucket list trip of a lifetime, a South African Safari. You want to know how to plan your trip and don’t know where to begin? Well we hope our experience can help! We are just back and simply loved the experience.

First off, there are many places in Africa vying for your tourist dollars and many places to see animals and sample the famous ‘Out of Africa’ experience. Among these, you could include Kenya and Tanzania, famous for the Great Migration (see our post on these). Botswana and Zimbabwe, where you’ll find the mighty Okavango Delta; Victoria Falls in Zambia and Zimbabwe; Namibia, with its desert and Skeleton Coast; and even Uganda known for its gorillas. There are a lot of choices! Of these, South Africa is probably the most famous for its luxury camps and private game reserves.

If you want to experience the ultimate in luxury and visit the most famous camps, then South Africa offers plenty of choices. If, like us, you are mostly interested in seeing lots of animals, then you may make your choices differently but there are also lots of excellent options. Stay tuned and we’ll share some of our thinking in choosing the camps we did and share our experience staying at two camps in different private game reserves in the greater Kruger area.

Note that you can also choose to do your own self-driving safari in the Kruger National Park. There are many hotels at reasonable rates with car rentals that can be had. You can even hire guides and trackers per hour and per day in the park so there are plenty of budget options available.

Some things to be aware of however are that, the Kruger National Park is government run and has strict rules. The park closes at sundown and no night driving is allowed. Further, you must strictly stay on the roads, so no following the animals into the bushveld is allowed. There are also no restrictions on the number of vehicles at each sighting. These are some of the drawbacks that may limit your experience.

Kruger National Park is huge, and there are numerous private game reserves along its unfenced border allowing the animals to roam freely. Viewings at the private camps are much more exclusive thanks to both the quality of the rangers and the rules imposed by the privately-run camps.

While some camps have arrangements with their neighbors, typically access to the roads in the private game reserve is restricted to the guests and the vehicles of the camp(s) in the area making for much less traffic. Off-roading is also allowed, letting the vehicles follow animals into the bushveld and get safari-goers closer to the action.

Further, rules are usually very strict about the number of vehicles at any given sighting and the drivers would queue up over their radios to ensure there would never be more than two or three vehicles at a time.

When newborn animals are involved, this may be further restricted to daylight hours and only one vehicle (or in some cases, areas of the game reserve are just designated as off limits until the cubs are older). This is not only for the safety of the animals but also to slowly acclimate them to the vehicles, so they recognize these as non-threatening.

It was pretty amazing for us to see how close the vehicles could get and how the animals had no particular interest or reaction to the jeep sounds and human voices. They’d go about their business and not even look up at us much of the time. In some cases, they had even learned to use the vehicles to their hunting advantage (more on this later!).

Choosing the camps and planning the safari

The time of year you go is important as the sightings will vary depending largely on the availability of water. In the rainy season (Oct-Mar), there is much more water, the trees are full of foliage and the grass is higher. The animals have many more choices about where to go to drink as water is plentiful. They are also harder to spot with a lot of foliage cover to hide behind. But if you are a birder the rainy season may be ideal.

In the dry season (Apr-Sep) the grass gets shorter and the leaves fall off making spotting easier. The lack of water also has the animals congregating to the narrowing rivers and shrinking number of watering holes. This dry season makes for a good time to come for animal spotting but do keep in mind that this is also the South African winter so you can have cold mornings and evenings.

Most of the private game reserves reside on the western side of the Kruger National Park and we had researched many options in making our selections. We ended up picking two of the top private game reserves:

• Sabi Sands, named after the Sand River, is the southernmost private reserve. This 163,000-acre area is unfenced with Kruger. Sabi Sands also has a lot of the top-end camps to choose from. On top of that it’s known as one of the best areas for game viewing.
• Timbavati, further north is also an unfenced 160,000-acre reserve and became famous for its white lions, but unfortunately none have been seen recently. This area has less camps and is perhaps less crowded but also makes for excellent viewing.

Related post: Going on a Magical South African Safari (an Adventure of a Lifetime)

Sabi Sands Game Reserve

At Sabi Sands, there are many camps to choose from. Here you’ll find some of the most luxurious camps as well as some more reasonable ones. There is a high price for exclusivity and some of the top camps can demand thousands of dollars a night!

Our own search was primarily based on the likelihood of seeing animals and thus the proximity to water. While many of the camps have great names, when you look, they don’t have the access to water in the winter dry season as many of the local rivers will have run dry. The camp we chose in this reserve was one of the first ones established (and the first to switch to photography safaris, another plus!), the famous MalaMala.

The name MalaMala, means kudu, an animal abundant in the area and what we loved about it was that it was directly on the border of Kruger and covered a huge stretch of land between the Sand River and Kruger Park. The choice didn’t disappoint, and we saw the Big Five many times and even rare cheetahs and painted dogs.

Days at the camp were well organized with the activities being built around the two daily game drives. MalaMala had a winter and summer schedule whereby in the winter, we’d go out on the game drive after breakfast often staying out right to about noon or even 1pm. On return, we basically had enough time to drop off our cameras and bags and head to lunch at the main cabin.

From there, usually just another hour and we were ready for the evening game drive followed by dinner. With the early wake-ups, we didn’t have much time for anything else, and after dinner it was basically get ready for bed and do it all again the next day. Of course, this is exactly what we came for.

While the lodge itself was beautiful and we sometimes thought we wished we had more time to enjoy the plunge pool or to sit around the luxurious accommodations, we would not have traded a minute of game viewing for that, so definitely no complaints.

The few times we did enjoy our outside balcony and view of the river, we managed to spot lions across the river, another time an elephant and some rhinos.

Even being in the room we were watching for animals. We once had a rowdy troop of monkeys jump on the roof a few times and make a racket. Another time we saw bush babies watching from above as we had dinner in the boma.

We were surprised to hear from our ranger that some people preferred to skip a game drive or cut it short to relax at the lodge. For us, we wanted to be out on the jeep as early as possible, for as long as possible and see as much as possible. After all, we traveled almost 30 hours to be there to see the animals.

The sheer size of the reserve was striking and the system of roads that were built to crisscross through it was equally impressive. We’d go off in seemingly a new direction daily and see the wonders of the park for hours at a time, the rangers seemed to know the park inside out.

The safari jeeps were made to carry as many as six guests with the driver, but our camp limited the groups to four. We were lucky to have a private jeep some days as the couple that shared the ranger and ride with us on the first two days moved on to another camp.

Heading out in the cold mornings, Gordyn (just one ranger per jeep and no tracker at MalaMala) would prepare a hot water bottle for us and give us blankets to keep warm. Halfway through there would be a stop to have a snack on the built-in picnic table on the jeep (nice touch!). We got quite good at spotting a strategic bush to ‘mark our territory’ which was free of any fresh lion or leopard tracks too.

The experience with the ranger was spectacular. Gordyn had been with the camp almost 10 years and he knew each of the animal calls, the tracks, and seemingly could see better than a hawk! He stopped the jeep suddenly once, only to get out and show us a small chameleon that was on the road and almost got run over. Lucky us and certainly a lucky chameleon!

Our ranger also took us out on a walking safari where we looked at tracks and vegetation but when we came up on a roaming rhino, we had to carefully make our way back to the jeep.

The off-road experience with the very capable 4-wheel drive safari vehicles was amazing. We’d literally drive into the bushveld to follow lions and leopards while they hunted driving over bushes, roots, and rocks in the ragged terrain. We’d go through the rivers, along the sand, and up the dirt hills at what seemed like a 30-degree grade in low gear.

At first it was a little disconcerting to be in an open-topped jeep literally a few feet from hungry lions, but we soon saw the animals had grown accustomed to the jeeps and gave them little if any notice.

One evening we even took part in a lion hunt! The lions had learned to use the sound of the jeeps to their advantage and would advance towards their prey when the jeeps rolled. They had learned that to use the vehicles to mask the sound of their movement so as not to alert their prey. On one evening drive, we had a male lion lie down right beside the jeep to watch an approaching herd of unsuspecting impalas.

The night safaris were also quite spectacular as many of the predators became more active in the evenings. From lions and leopards to small African wildcats and genets, and owls our ranger would use a high-powered flashlight to spot and show us these wonders.

At one point in the evening, we would stop the jeep for ‘sundowners’ and open up the picnic table to enjoy a beautiful African sunset with snacks and refreshments. Very civilized indeed!

Once we just pulled up on the dry sandy river bed in the later part of the evening and shut the lights and engine to look up at the Milky Way and literally thousands of stars! We even spotted a flyby satellite moving fast in the sky, it was a magical moment!

All the meals were excellent, tasty, and well prepared. We never lacked for anything. Our lodge was so huge we could have moved in with all our furniture, and our small 7kg carryon was lost in the master walk-in closet and the his and hers bathrooms and changing rooms.

We stayed four nights and timed our departure to make sure we got in the last morning game drive and made it to the second camp in time for the evening drive.

Check out our more recent post about MalaMala Rattray’s Camp

Timbavati Game Reserve

Our second stop was further north in Timbavati. We were lucky to organize a helicopter tour to take us there and give us a scenic view of the waterfalls, Blyde River Canyon and the Drakensberg Mountains. We stopped near God’s Window for a picnic.

Feeling like rock stars, we landed on the helipad at Kings Camp in Timbavati to learn that for the first couple of nights we had the place to ourselves!

We were very impressed by the camp, its staff, and our experience overall. When booking we thought that the private waterhole near the camp would be a step down from being next to a flowing river at MalaMala. But the animals coming to the watering hole were plentiful and often close in proximity. It was amazing to see giraffes bending down and spreading their legs to reach the water, and on our last day we even had a whole heard of elephants come by and put on a show.

Our unit had a private plunge pool, and while a little cold for us to do more than put our feet in during winter, it did serve as a good attraction for many of the local colorful birds. We enjoyed sitting on the terrace birdwatching and listening to the various animal calls from the bush just beyond. We even had some hyenas howling one night, which had us keep one eye open and make sure the doors were locked!

See our South African Bird Gallery

The formula at Kings Camp worked a little differently in that we had an even earlier (5:20am) wake up call to get going by 6am. This schedule worked well as not only did we get to see the sunrise from the jeep, we found that it gave us the opportunity to enjoy the camp after breakfast for a few hours instead of rushing directly from lunch to the next drive. Having a few more hours we got to try the spa, enjoy our room and do some relaxation by the pool.

The Timbavati Game Reserve also allowed off-roading with the jeeps and we also did the night drives with the flashlight. Here the open vehicle land rovers were equipped with a seat up front on the hood of the vehicle for a tracker who would accompany the ranger. Our tracker Donald even got off occasionally and headed out on foot through the bush to track leopards and rhinos (brave man!). Impressively he succeeded in following the tracks and catching up with the animals each time he did that.

Our ranger Neil was very informative and was more like an overall host taking care of every detail from picking us up on arrival to helping us confirm flights and arrange dinner. We were happy to have him join us for some meals to get to know him better and were impressed at his uncanny ability to spot a track or hear a sound and recognize it. There wasn’t a single bird we saw that he couldn’t name, and we saw many.

While the animal viewing was a little more sparse in Timbavati, we did manage to see the Big Five and we did see leopards and lions, including a family of lions with 11 cubs.

Meals were a delight and always plentiful. With the winter months the camp was less busy, and we got a lot of attention (and a lot of food). We enjoyed one meal in front of the fire pit, another one was setup for us in the library and one on our private terrace. All meals were excellent, beautifully presented and perfectly seasoned. We really appreciated the healthy mixes of fresh vegetables and fruits, and even got to try some local meats like kudu and impala.

We left Timbavati with a small charter plane off their private air strip which was a nice touch and much more convenient than a couple of hours of dirt roads to the closest major airport. The plane had an open cockpit which was also quite an experience hearing the various bells and whistles going off from time to time.

Conclusion

It was hard for us to imagine, but after 7 consecutive days of game drives twice a day, we had seen so many animals we were actually ready to come home. With over 3,000 pictures (yes, we have to work on that!), we were glad that we had put away the cameras for the last few days and just enjoyed the experience to let it all soak in.

See our South African Animal Gallery

Africa is a magical place and we will miss the fiery sunsets, those star-filled skies, the warmth and hospitality of the people, and of course the animals. We hope to be back one day again.

See our Travel Planning Guide:

Planning Your Dream Trip… On Your Own!