A first-time guide to Kruger National Park, South Africa

There’s a snort in the bush and a troop of warthogs muscle their way out of the undergrowth just as a bee-eater in a fluster of iridescent feathers lands improbably on a twig. High above, a snake eagle momentarily clouds the sky, perhaps clocking the movement of a lone cheetah in the grasslands below. You sip iced tea, watching the dust kicked up by a herd of elephants moving as silently along the dry riverbed as their massive bulks allow. All this entertainment, and you haven’t left camp yet. This is South Africa's Kruger – a park so full of wonders you can’t help but be wrapped up in its magic.

Easy to reach, expertly managed and almost uniquely self-drivable, Kruger National Park is one of the world’s great destinations for wildlife viewing. All the Big Five – lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino – are present in the park, together with safari favorites impala, zebra, giraffe, hippos and crocs. The hardest part of the trip is booking accommodations (in tents, cabins or lodges at one of Kruger’s rest camps) at short notice in high season. Other than that, the whole park is designed to give safe, responsible and informed access to the widest contingent of people, regardless of budget, mobility or time.

Only have two days to spare? Go anyway! With a pair of binoculars, the Kruger National Park Map and one booked game drive, you’ll find Kruger whispers in your ear until you find a way to return for longer.

When should I go to Kruger National Park?

Kruger National Park is wonderful to visit at any time of year but arguably the dry winter months, from May to September, offer the best wildlife viewing. At this time, the bush dies back and trees shed their leaves making it easier to observe animals and birds gathered around the shrinking waterholes. Naturally, peak wildlife viewing also means peak visitor season with July and August being the two busiest months of the year.

The hot, rainy summer months, particularly December and January, mark another high season in the park, coinciding with local school holidays. While wildlife is harder to spot, and daytime temperatures are uncomfortably hot and humid, the park is at its prettiest with abundant newborn life hiding in the dense foliage. Booking several months ahead for any of Kruger’s camps is advisable during peak times.

How much time should I spend in Kruger?

Although Kruger rewards even the briefest of visits, the odds of spotting the highlights are improved the longer you remain in the park. For most people with a general interest in wildlife and keen to learn about the bush, five days makes a perfect introduction to the park. This gives a couple of days to focus on spotting the Big Five in and around the main camp of Skukuza, take a game drive and a guided bush walk to learn about the park’s extraordinary diversity, and explore a quieter camp, with a focus on antelope, further north. On a longer visit, dodge "spotters’ fatigue" by adding in a side trip along part of the Panorama Route outside the park, or include a luxury night or two in one of the private concessions or game reserves that neighbor Kruger.

Is it easy to get into Kruger?

The park is served by its own airport, Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, a daily scheduled one-hour flight from Johannesburg. From here, it’s a 90-minute drive by hire car or taxi to the main rest camp, Skukuza. Taxis are also available from Hazyview, a gateway town well-served by public transport.

There are nine main gates into Kruger (and two 4WD-only access points bordering Mozambique). When working out which gateway to use, bear in mind strictly enforced park speed limits of 50km/h (30mph) on tarred roads, and hefty fines for late arrival at your chosen camp after sunset. Check the Kruger website for camp gate opening times, which change throughout the year.

Is it easy to get around Kruger?

Once inside the park, all camps offer sunrise drives, three-hour sunset drives and two-hour night drives. Inside the perimeter fence of any of the park’s main camps it’s also possible to walk around the grounds even after dark. For a privileged view of Kruger, though, it’s hard to beat self-driving. Car hire is possible from Kruger’s airport and even the park’s main gravel roads (such as the renowned Sabie River Rd) are negotiable in a sedan car. The joy of self-driving is it allows you to watch a herd of impala for as long as you wish without being urged on by those hungry to spot lion, to pull up for a picnic in the bush at a designated site empty of all other vehicles and reach remote parts of the park just for the joy of exploring the park’s varied terrain.

Top things to do in Kruger

Go on a game drive

Agreed, it’s not wholly desirable getting up well before dawn at 3am when it’s bitterly cold for much of the year, and yes, your fellow passengers may have their idiosyncrasies, but with multiple eyes on the job, there’s no better way to spot the most wildlife in the least amount of time than on a game drive. The highly experienced driver-guides know exactly where the local lions are lounging and can make the spotting of waterbuck and mongooses as exciting as tracking rhino. Book trips through the central Kruger website or, in lower seasons, reserve a place on the daily three-hour dawn drive or two-hour sunset drive at any Kruger camp office.

Take a walk in the park

They look big from a car but on foot Kruger’s large herbivores assume mammoth proportions. Guided walks, organized from any of the camps, take up to three hours but the memory of being on the same probable path as an elephant, rhino or hippo is likely to last a lifetime. With your safety their first concern, park rangers help the visitor get under the leaf mold of the park to watch a whole world of interconnected wonders at work. Walks tend to leave visitors less obsessed with the Big Five and more fascinated with their tiny elusive namesakes – the antlion, leopard tortoise, elephant shrew, buffalo weaver and rhinoceros beetle.

Be busy doing nothing

With two million hectares (20,000sq km/7722 sq miles) of wilderness, Kruger is dauntingly vast. Encompassing 20 distinct ecozones ranging from the drier north with its fever trees and baobabs, the dense mopani thickets and open savannah of central Kruger, and a lush riverine vegetation in the south, the park would take a lifetime to know in depth. Rather than driving in vain to "see it all," spend a day letting Kruger’s residents come to you. Each camp generally has a superb lookout across a riverbed, reservoir or waterhole and shaded grounds that attract a multitude of non-bipedal visitors in the heat of the afternoon. The longer you wait for nothing to happen, the more you’ll notice what really goes on while your fellow human beings are rushing from A to B – a troop of mongooses filing past the restaurant, an elegantly socked nyala browsing behind the pool, or a thieving baboon sitting at your doorstep. Learning about your four-, six- and eight-legged neighbors is a highlight of camp life.

Brave the night

Kruger at night is not the Kruger of day. It’s raw and real and belongs to a whole other world of animals that venture out in moonlight or lurk in the shadows hoping not to be seen. No one is allowed into this other world unless they are part of a guided night drive. A startled elephant trumpets louder at night, the spots of a leopard loom larger, and mosquitos draw blood at each pause in the path. Coming back smaller is the best education that a night drive can give.

Lounge in luxury

The wholesome life of a Kruger camp with its early mornings, hearty breakfasts, hikes and early nights is rejuvenating but after a few days there’s a certain hankering after a soft bed, hot bath and a slice of something naughty. Booking in for a night or two of luxury in a Sabie Sands lodge, or at any of the private concessions or game reserves that adjoin Kruger Park, offers glamping at its finest and the chance to deepen your knowledge of the bush from the expert trackers that each lodge employs. Prices tend to be high but the all-inclusive itineraries, private game drives tailored to your interests and generally delicious home-cooked fare represent value for money. And let’s face it, there’s no putting a price on the tea delivered to your tent flap before dawn or the sundowner with hippos.

My favorite thing to do in Kruger

It’s early December and so hot the road is rising in ribbons on either side of the Tropic of Capricorn that bisects a route through the park, north of Mopani Camp. A herd of zebra are parked up under the umbrella thorn and even the glades of long grass that are a feature of this part of the park have yellowed under the tropical assault of the sun. It’s almost too hot for humans but somehow it’s never too hot to birdwatch. And there, dancing on the gridlines of the map, over-dressed and bald-headed under the sun, is a male ostrich – the world’s biggest bird – with his family of smaller non-fliers hopping and pecking to the rear. Nearby the patterned leaf matter of the ground resolves into the feathers of a stalking kori bustard – the world's heaviest flying bird – while overhead the martial eagle, Africa’s biggest eagle, aims for the sun and spirals back to earth in a swoon. Throw in the saddle-billed stork – the world’s tallest – and you’ve identified a birder's Big Four.

If that’s too many superlatives, then there’s an extravagant collection of long-tailed, brilliantly colored, socially inventive and behaviorly bizarre other birds waiting to be spotted from Kruger’s many bird hides, all accessible by self-drive. Over 500 species of bird have been sighted in the park and even a first-timer can notch up a sighting of 50 species over a couple of days, particularly if armed with a bird guide such as Sinclair and Hockey’s Birds of Southern Africa. But beware: twitching is addictive!

How much money do I need for Kruger?

Considering the unparalleled access to the park that Kruger allows, the cost of a self-guided visit staying in main camp accommodation represents very good value. This is particularly the case when compared with compulsorily guided safaris elsewhere, including in the high-end, all-inclusive camps in the private concessions and game parks that neighbor Kruger. A two-night, self-driving and self-catering visit in tented accommodation can cost as little as $250, or $350 with one guided bush walk.

Some average costs of a Kruger visit are shown below. Credit cards are accepted throughout the park:

• Daily conservation fee: R486 ($27)

• One-person tent per night: R450 ($25)

• Two-person self-catering cabin per night: from R830 ($45)

• Double-room in a Kruger lodge per night: from R3976 ($225)

• Single, all-inclusive package in a private concession per night: R11,229 ($620)

• Daily rate of car (sedan) hire from airport: R285 ($16)

• One game drive for up to four persons: R3940 ($220) per vehicle

• One three-hour bush walk per person: R1810 ($100)

• Two-course dinner for two at a camp restaurant: R450 ($25)

• Beer/glass of wine: R40 ($2.20)

• Kruger National Park map and wildlife guide: R120 ($7)

Is Kruger National Park dangerous?

Yes, there are wild predatorial cats freely roaming; yes, there are venomous snakes, scorpions and biting insects; yes, there are herds of elephants, cape buffalo, rhinos and hippos all of which have the potential to cause injury but the main thing making any of these Kruger residents potentially dangerous is provocation on behalf of the visitor. Strict rules are in place to ensure visitor safety, including the closing of camp gates before sunset, the prohibition of any kind of walking in the park without a guide except within carefully demarcated areas, informative guided drives and hikes that help the visitor understand their place within the park ecosystem, and instructions about the storing and preparation of food within campsites. By respecting the rules, applying common sense, and keeping an eye on petty theft around some of the camps closer to the more popular park gates in the south (including from opportunistic baboons and demanding honey badgers), there’s no reason to be concerned for safety.

How do I book a visit to Kruger?

It’s easy to book accommodation and activities in Kruger though the official South African national parks website. Simply select Kruger, the camp or camps you’d like to stay in and the type of accommodation and activities you wish to reserve. Several different types of accommodations are available in all the camps, ranging from bringing your own tent to staying in cabins and lodges. Book well ahead for a visit at peak times.

How do I choose where to stay?

Deciding on the camp that best suits your interests is key to the enjoyment of Kruger. There are 12 main rest camps in the park, each offering a range of accommodation with linen provided, and with self-catering facilities, a restaurant, shop, safe drinking water and fuel station. Many camps have a swimming pool and all have some kind of viewing deck. The camps include Kruger’s busy, modernized, sociable HQ at Skukuza in the wetter, more-visited south; close to the Sabie Sand River, the surrounding area has a high concentration of the Big Five. At the opposite end of the park, there’s the quaint, heritage camp of Punda Maria in the less-visited and dryer north. This is an area excellent for bird-watching, particularly around Crooks Corner where the Limpopo flows along the border of three countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique). Apart from the 12 main camps, there are also smaller, quieter camps in the bush, lit by lanterns and without AC or fan.

What should I pack?

Summers are hot in Kruger and a hat, sunblock and swimwear (for camp pools) are sensible must-haves from November to March. Pack warm clothing in winter, from May to September, when pre-dawn temperatures drop dramatically. To avoid catching malaria, which is endemic in the park, pack mosquito repellant (also available in Kruger Park camp shops) and a net, and consult with a doctor about taking malaria tablets. According to the Kruger Park map, there are 53 varieties of snake in Kruger so to avoid stepping on one by mistake at night in the camp grounds, sturdy walking shoes and a flashlight are a good idea. To make the most of wildlife viewing, don’t forget a good pair of binoculars and a mammal and/or bird book.