Hotels : Curated

South Africa

South African Game Reserves

A herd of elephants with calves crossing a red dirt track at Welgevonden in the evening light

For 50 km along the western edge of Kruger National Park there is no fence, and the game crosses into Sabi Sand whenever it likes. What changes at the line is the rules for the vehicles. On a private reserve the guide may leave the road after an animal and stay out after dark, neither of which the park's public roads allow, and only so many vehicles are permitted at a sighting, which spares a leopard the queue. Sabi Sand is best known for its leopards. A guide who works the same ground every day knows where they were yesterday.

Choosing a reserve comes down to mosquitoes before lions. Sabi Sand and Kruger, where a few private concessions inside the park run their own drives, are in Mpumalanga's malaria area. The other four are not, which is what puts them on a shortlist with children. Madikwe, on the Botswana border, has three resident packs of African wild dogs. It is a short flight to its own airstrip, or three and a half to five hours by road from OR Tambo, which is a long way to drive for a dog. Welgevonden, in the Waterberg, is about three hours north of Johannesburg and closed to day visitors. Kwandwe and Shamwari are out of Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape, and Kwandwe follows the Great Fish River, which is black rhino country.

The dry winter, May to September, is the season for game in all six. The cover thins and the animals gather at whatever water is left, which does part of the guide's work. Sabi Sand rates September highest: the least cold month of winter, with the bush at its barest. From November to April the rains bring tall grass and harder sightings in Sabi Sand and Kruger, though the birdlife is better and the plains game has its young.

The day turns on two drives, at dawn and dusk, with a guide and a tracker to each vehicle. Where a reserve allows it, a walk with an armed guide reads the tracks a vehicle drives past. After dinner a night drive goes out for what the day missed: genets, aardvark and, at Madikwe, the brown hyena, a Kalahari specialist rare elsewhere in the country. In Welgevonden one lodge has a tunnel out to an underground hide at its waterhole. On the edge of Kruger, restored railway carriages stand on the old Selati Bridge, with the Sabie River running underneath and the train going nowhere.

Best months
May to September
Nearest airport
OR Tambo International (Johannesburg), for Welgevonden, Madikwe, Sabi Sand and Kruger; Chief Dawid Stuurman International (Gqeberha), for Kwandwe and Shamwari

Neighbourhoods

Where to stay

9 hotels

9 hotels

The pool deck at 57 Waterberg in full sun, curtained daybeds either side of the pool and the bush running away to the hillsGrown-up & family

57 Waterberg

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Out with a guide at dawn and again at dusk into a malaria-free Big Five reserve on the Waterberg plateau, and in between an infinity pool looking out over the same bush.

Red train carriages on an old steel bridge over a river at golden hour, with a round plunge pool and deck built onto one of the stone piers below the carriages.Grown-up & family

Kruger Shalati - The Train on the Bridge

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Twenty-four suites in the carriages of a train parked for good on a 1910 bridge over the Sabie, with hippo and elephant passing under the pool.

A lodge terrace at dusk with wicker armchairs around a stone fire pit, and a lit dining room with set tables under a thatched roof behind.Grown-up & family

Kwandwe Ecca Lodge

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Three of the six suites on Kwandwe's hills come with a safari vehicle and a guide of their own, so a family can go out after rhino at whatever hour the children wake.

a rocky riverbed with pools of water and grass at sunrise, trees and granite boulders along the banksGrown-up & family

Londolozi

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Five camps on a bend of the Sand River, with trackers who have studied the reserve's leopards for decades and a studio that will rent you the camera.

An aerial view at dusk of Long Lee Manor's white colonial buildings, a pool and a round dam, set among grassland and hills.Grown-up & family

Long Lee Manor

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Verandas tiled like a chessboard look over a waterhole and the Eastern Cape plains from Long Lee Manor, a homestead of 1910 on the Shamwari reserve.

A swimming pool and striped sun loungers on a lawn, with elephants drinking at a waterhole beyond and hills on the horizonGrown-up & family

Madikwe Safari Lodge

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

On a malaria-free reserve where the Kalahari meets the bushveld, every suite has a plunge pool of its own for the hours between the dawn drive and the dusk one.

A pool at dusk beside a thatched lodge with a stone retaining wall, loungers on the deck, and bush and sky beyond.Grown-up & family

Mhondoro Safari Lodge & Villa

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Wild elephants come to drink at the saltwater pool of this thatched Waterberg lodge, and its spa deck looks out over their waterhole.

An open-sided lounge with a blue rug and dark blue sofas, looking through a wide opening onto a wooden deck with sun loungers, a large tree, and grassland beyond.Grown-up

Silvan Safari Lodge

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Six suites on a Sabi Sand riverbed, each with a plunge pool that the elephants passing through camp drink from as if it were theirs.

An outdoor daybed draped with a sheer canopy sits on a deck overlooking trees and a riverbank in late afternoon light.Grown-up & family

Singita Lebombo

££££

South African Game Reserves, South Africa

Glass-walled suites hung off the rock above the N'wanetsi River in Kruger, each with a daybed under netting out on its deck for sleeping outside.