Question 1

Kruger on Your Own

Accepted Answer

An independent visit to Kruger means a long transfer, then either driving yourself or joining guided drives, under park rules that are strictly enforced. Many visitors rent a car, while many lodges sell all-inclusive packages that make a car unnecessary. Getting there alone: Fly to one of the airports near the park, or drive. Avis has an office inside the park at Skukuza camp, and other firms rent cars at the airports. Gate times: Entry gates and camp gates open and close at fixed times. You may not drive or walk in the park after dark without a guide, and drivers found out late are fined heavily. Staying in the car: Outside the camps you may leave your vehicle only at a few marked places, and walking on your own is not allowed. Day visits: Guided morning and afternoon drives for day visitors start from park-and-ride points at Phabeni and Paul Kruger gates. Choose your gate: Avoid Numbi Gate and the R538 road that leads to it, where there have been violent incidents. Malaria: The whole park is a malaria area. Ask a doctor about tablets well before you travel, and use repellent and cover up as well. Keep your tour's times: On a cruise land stay, your transfer back to the ship or the airport runs to a fixed schedule, so keep to the times your tour gives you.

Question 2

Getting Around the Park

Accepted Answer

Roads inside Kruger are good: main roads are tarred, and an ordinary car can manage the gravel side roads. Distances are long, and crossing the park from south to north takes about ten hours. Speed limits are 50 km/h on tarred roads, 40 km/h on gravel and 20 km/h inside rest camps. Keep your entry permit, because you must show it to leave the park. Satnav apps often try to send drivers along private roads. Maps are sold at the main camps and the gates. In the summer rains, some gravel roads and low bridges may close because of flooding. Rangers lead bush drives at sunrise and sunset from Skukuza, Letaba, Berg-en-Dal and other camps. Night drives, which leave shortly before the gates close, are the only way to be out in the park after dark. Guided walks with armed rangers can be booked at camp reception.

Question 3

Food and Drink

Accepted Answer

Most of the main rest camps have one restaurant, run by chains well known in South Africa, and a shop selling groceries, drinks and firewood for a braai, the South African barbecue. Many camps also offer a bush braai, an evening drive that ends with dinner cooked out in the bush. A bush braai usually includes maize porridge called pap, boerewors sausage and game meat. You must be staying in the camp to join one. Some bush braais take only a few children or none at all, so families may prefer a boma braai, an open-fire barbecue inside the camp. Lodges serve South African specialties such as biltong, dried meat that may be made from kudu, impala or zebra. Every kind of accommodation has somewhere to cook, and campsites have shared kitchens.

Question 4

Tipping in South Africa

Accepted Answer

Tipping is the norm in South African restaurants, where a tip of around 10 percent of the bill is usual. The currency is the South African rand. The same rule of about 10 percent usually applies to taxi rides.

Question 5

History

Accepted Answer

The South African Republic first protected game along the Sabie River in 1898, and in 1926 that reserve became South Africa's first national park, named after President Paul Kruger. Making the park also meant moving the people who lived on the land. 1898, the Sabi Game Reserve: The government of the South African Republic set the area aside to control hunting and protect dwindling game. It covered roughly the southern third of today's park. 1902, the first warden: James Stevenson-Hamilton took charge and stayed 44 years, until 1946. His Tsonga staff nicknamed him Skukuza, the name the park headquarters carries today. From 1905, removals: The Ngomane clan near Skukuza was moved off the land in 1905, and over the following decades other communities were removed, the last of them the Makuleke people in the far north in 1969. 1923, the first tourists: Visitors first came in numbers on the South African Railways' "Round in Nine" tours, which ran along the Selati line through the reserve. June 11, 1926, a national park: Parliament passed the National Parks Act, joining the Sabi and Singwitsi reserves and neighboring farms into Kruger National Park. The public was first admitted in 1927. 1959 to 1960s, the fence: Work began on fencing the park's boundaries to curb the spread of disease and keep poachers out. 1996, a land claim: The Makuleke community claimed back about 198 square kilometers in the north. The land was returned, and they chose to work with private partners on tourism lodges rather than resettle it. 2002, across borders: Kruger was joined with parks in Zimbabwe and Mozambique in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. To learn more ashore: The James Stevenson-Hamilton Memorial Library and Museum, in Skukuza Rest Camp, holds the park's history along with archaeological and anthropological finds.

Question 6

Kruger with Children

Accepted Answer

A Kruger stay with children means long hours in a vehicle and early starts, because animals are most active when the gates open and just before they close. Book camps and drives that accept children, and talk to a doctor about malaria protection before you go. Younger children: Bird hides break up a long drive. At Lake Panic, near Skukuza, hippos and crocodiles are often seen from the hide. Ranger-led bush drives charge children less than adults. School age: Set a challenge to find the Little Five as well as the Big Five: the buffalo weaver, elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, ant lion and rhino beetle. Letaba Elephant Hall, a small museum at Letaba camp, has games for children and the tusks of the Magnificent Seven, large bull elephants that lived in the park in the 1970s and 1980s. Teenagers: Night drives with rangers leave shortly before the gates close and run into the dark, and several camps, including Skukuza, Satara and Letaba, show wildlife films in the evening. Ask everyone not to post the location of animals, especially rhino, on social media, because poachers use it.

Kruger National Park Area

Good to know

Getting There

Kruger on Your Own

Getting Around the Park

Food and Drink

Tipping in South Africa

History

Kruger with Children

Port crowds

Photos from travelers

Traveler reviews