A single tree in silhouette against a gold sunset over the bush at Londolozi, the Sabi Sand, low hills layered along the horizon

Destinations  ·  Seventeen lodges

South Africa

From the private reserves of Zululand to the Sand River and one house in the Kalahari: the seventeen places we would actually send you.

Londolozi, Sabi Sand

Most guides to a South African safari begin and end in the Sabi Sand. This one does not. Twelve of the seventeen lodges on this page are in KwaZulu-Natal: in the private Big 5 reserves of Zululand, on the shore of Lake St Lucia, on a houseboat under the Lebombo Mountains, on a river the Mthembu clan has lived beside for five hundred years.

The Sabi Sand is here too, because it earns its reputation: Londolozi on the Sand River, Dulini, Elephant Plains beside the Kruger, and the Earth Lodge at Sabi Sabi. And there is one outlier a long way to the west, Tswalu in the Kalahari, which is on this list because there is nothing else like it.

Seventeen is not many. That is the point. Each lodge is here because we would send you there, and the line beneath each name is the reason why.

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Seventeen lodges

South Africa

Not sure which one?

Tell us who is travelling, when, and what you want the days to feel like. We will narrow seventeen down to two or three and come back to you with options.

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