Kruger National Park Hotels South Africa

Kruger National Park hotels within the game reserve itself are limited to the accommodation run by South African National Parks and the private concessions (a type of private game reserve). If you’re after more choice, there are many hotels just a stone’s throw away from the park.

We’ve written about both these options – staying in and outside the game reserve. Let’s start with hotels in Kruger National Park.

Staying at Kruger Park Hotels South Africa

The South African National Park’s accommodation is at rest camps throughout the wildlife reserve, although it’s not quite the same as staying in a hotel.

Kruger National Park offers you the choice of staying in bungalows, cottages or guest houses if you’re after hotel style accommodation, otherwise you have the option of camping or staying in huts.

Huts are more like a private room in a youth hostel whereby you have your own room, but bathrooms are shared with other people staying in huts and with campers.

Each hut, bungalow, cottage and guest house is free standing or semi-detached.They’re serviced daily just like a hotel. You’re bed is made and the rooms are cleaned. That’s great. You don’t have to clean your room yourself when you’re on holidays! 😉

Most of the Kruger National Park hotel units will also have self-catering equipment. When you make your booking, you’ll be able to see exactly what equipment your accommodation has. If you need to buy food, the general stores at the main rest camps sell a selection of groceries.

If you don’t fancy cooking, there are plenty of food and eating out options too in Kruger National Park. Most of the main rest camps have restaurants and cafes to choose between.

Private Concessions

The exception to the South African National Park run accommodation are the private concessions within Kruger National Park. They’re independently run areas of the park, but follow the same nature conservation ideals as the rest of Kruger.

The private concessions are all 5 star luxury safari destinations and have prices to match. All meals and game drives are generally included.

Hotels near Kruger National Park

If you wanted to stay in Kruger National Park, but it’s booked out for when you wanted to visit, don’t worry. Or maybe you simply want more choice about where you want to stay overnight.

Whatever the reason, there’s a huge range of hotels to stay at outside the park in the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Some are on the doorstep to a few of the Kruger National Park entrance gates.

Here are some popular hotels outside the park:

We haven’t stayed at any of these hotels before, as we’ve always stayed in the park itself. If you’ve stayed at one of them or want to tell us about another hotel you’ve stayed at near the park, tell us what you thought about it by contacting us. We’ll share your comments on our website to help other visitors make the right accommodation choice.

Kruger National Park is within Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. You might be based at one of the vast number of hotels in either of these provinces and easily make a day trip to the park.

Even if you aren’t staying overnight in Kruger National Park, but are in the area, remember to protect yourself against malaria.

If you do decide to stay in a hotel outside the park, the further you are from the park, the more your safari experience could be interrupted by sights from the “outside world” and traffic noise. This is one of the reasons that we always want to stay in a Kruger National Park hotel.