The cheapest way in
Elephant Plains Game Lodge
The least expensive published rate in this guide, from R7,300 per person a night in the northern sector behind Gowrie Gate.
South Africa · western boundary of Kruger
Sabi Sand Game Reserve Independent Guides & Information
Around 65,000 hectares of private land on Kruger's western edge, with no fence between the two since 1993. Roughly forty camps, some of the most expensive beds in Africa, and two numbers that decide your trip: what the lodge charges, and how much ground its vehicles are allowed to drive.
Photo: Fir0002, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Every camp's published rate, in rand and in dollars
The conservation levy per lodge, which nobody else publishes
How much ground each lodge can actually drive, and who it shares with
No preferred camps, and nobody buys a better position
Where Sabi Sand is, and which gate you want
Sabi Sand lies on Kruger's western boundary, roughly six to seven hours' drive from Johannesburg or a short flight into Skukuza or Kruger Mpumalanga International. Three public gates serve it, Gowrie in the north, Newington in the west and centre, and Shaws in the south, and your lodge decides which one you use.
- 1 Gowrie Gate Northern sector, eight camps behind it
- 2 Newington Gate West and central sector, twelve camps behind it
- 3 Shaws Gate Southern sector, four camps behind it
- Pan with a hide or viewing platform
- Dam
- Gate or barrier on the map
- Tarred trunk road
Why this guide exists, and where the numbers come from
This guide is written by someone who overlanded much of Africa in his own Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent, and for whom the national parks were what stayed. The information about them online was usually missing, wrong or years old: fees from three tariff sheets ago, camps that had closed, roads described by people who had never driven them.
So this guide runs on the park authority's own tariff document rather than a copied operator page, on thirty-year climate normals rather than brochure weather, and on what the camps tell us directly. Every claim carries a date. Where the Sabi Sand Wildtuin is silent, so are we, apart from saying that it is silent.
Nothing here is for sale. Listing a camp is free and no position on any page can be bought. Some outbound links earn us a small commission, and that changes neither the order of a list nor a single figure on these pages.
Found something out of date? Tell us and it changes the same week.
Where to stay in Sabi Sand
Thirty-nine camps across three gate sectors, from an owner-run lodge in the north to a private villa in the west. These four are not the best four; they are the four that mark out the range.
Independently owned, not a group camp
Arathusa Safari Lodge
One of the few Sabi Sand camps still owner-run rather than part of a hotel group, in the same northern sector, at under half the price of the reserve's marquee lodges.
Mid-range, in the south
Kirkman's Kamp
Cottages in a converted 1920s farmstead behind Shaws Gate, priced close to the middle of the 39 rates in this guide.
The top end
Singita Castleton
A private eight-guest villa in the west, and the benchmark against which the rest of the reserve's rates read.
Everything you need to plan a visit
What it costs
The bed rate is only part of it. The conservation levy, the gate fee and the levy caps add up to more than most people expect.
See the real cost →Traversing explained
Two lodges at the same price can differ tenfold in how much ground they drive. This is the number that decides what you see.
How traversing works →Lodges and camps
All 39, from R7,300 to R60,470 a night, with what each one includes and what it leaves out.
Browse them all →Getting there
Three gates, two airports, private airstrips, and the one thing GPS gets wrong on the way in.
Plan the route →