Overview

Kruger National Park is a self drive safari park in South Africa. We were able to visit the park at our own pace and when we stopped at the main camps we found them to be surprisingly accessible with dedicated parking places, step free access and to have accessible loos. It was amazing to see lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras and many many more in their natural habitat. A top tip would be to get the proper map from one of the shops at the entrance to the park - this not only shows the location of the camps but has distance and time estimates between them and it has a guide to the wildlife so that you can identify what animals and birds you are seeing. There are a couple of tarmac roads which are the main routes in the park but there are dirt tracks off to the side of these and these are well worth taking a 'bumpy' detour down! We were entering and exiting from the southern gates of the park each day - Crocodile Bridge Gate and Malalane Gate - so this review concentrates on this area and the Lower Sabie and Satara Camp. It's a huge area so we didn't get to explore the whole of the park!

Transport & Parking

At all the gates and at all the camps we saw dedicated disabled parking bays. You can only really get to the Kruger National Park using a car - and except for designated areas - for obvious reasons you have to stay in the car when you're there!

Access

Bearing in mind that you are on safari - it's amazingly accessible! You remain in your vehichle for much of the day but the camps are well thought out with dedicated parking spaces - which can be helpful as at certain times of the day when organised tours get back they can get really busy. The camps have step free access although there can be some quite steep gradients on some of the paths but these are not that long. There were also accessible loos signed throughout. There was quite a lot of decking and some gravel paths involved but the rest was tarmac. Shops at the camps and the gates were level access although some of them were quite tightly packed with merchandise. There were different cafes and restaurants at the camps that had different food options depending on whether you were after quick bite or sit down meal - again these were accessible and you could arrange tables and chairs as you needed to.

Toilets

Wherever there were loos there seemed to be an accessible loo. Easy to find and clean and tidy.

Staff

We didn't specifically need any help on our trip - but all staff we encountered from the shops to restaurants were pleasant and helpful. The rangers at the gates were particularly helpful and you got used to them searching your car on the say in and way out of the park each day to try to combat poaching.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

Some top tips: Buy one of the detailed maps with suggested itineraries, locations and distances of camps and wildlife guide. Take binoculars - we forgot but managed to get some good value ones in the camp shop Get up early! It's definitely worth it - the camp opens at 6.30 and early mornings were when we saw most of the wildlife

Photos