Africa's best-loved and most renowned game reserve, the legendary Kruger National Park is a global treasure as well as South Africa's flagship wildlife destination.  This is the home of the Big Five - lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant - long revered as the most dangerous animals to hunt on foot. The hunting has been consigned to history and the only shooting done in Kruger now is with cameras, so don't forget yours when you visit this incredible national park.

At just short of 19,500 square kilometres in size - giving it roughly 2-million hectares of pristine African wilderness (roughly the size of Israel!) - the Kruger National Park has 11 main entrances, or gates, around its perimeter. Its eastern boundary borders Mozambique, and to the south is the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). In the north it's bordered by Zimbabwe and it spans two of South Africa's provinces - Mpumalanga and Limpopo. It's 360km long and an average of 65km wide.

Created by President Paul Kruger in 1898, the park opened to tourists in 1927 and in those days entry was £1. Up until that point access to the park had only been available via train (along the old Selati railway line to Skukuza), horse or ox wagon! Cars were only allowed in from 1926 onwards, leading to the establishment of the current road system which has seen all of the main routes tarred. The remaining dirt roads are well-maintained and do not require a 4X4.

There are a variety of well-run camps and camp sites located throughout the Kruger as well as private concessions that are home to some wonderful luxury safari lodges, making Kruger accessible to all budgets, from camping to glamping and beyond! The drawcard is the incredible diversity of wildlife, with 148mammal species, 505 bird species and 118 species of reptiles in residence! Add to that some 1990 taxa of plants and you begin to understand the importance of conserving this incredible wilderness.

A large section of the Kruger Park is open on its western boundary to some of South Africa's premier private game reserves, giving rise to what is known as the Greater Kruger. The Balule Private Nature Reserve, Klaserie Private Game Reserve, Timbavati Private Game Reserve, Manyeleti Game Reserve and Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve are all unfenced along their borders with Kruger, allowing for the free flow of animal species between the reserves and creating an impressive extension of the protection offered by Kruger for wildlife in this area of South Africa.

The Greater Kruger region stretches from the town of Hazyview in Mpumalanga to Phalaborwa in Limpopo and is South Africa's major safari destination, offering as it does a wide variety of safari lodges and camps both in the Greater Kruger reserves and in various private game reserves adjacent to them. It also encompasses the UNESCO Kruger to Canyon Biosphere which includes the Kruger Park and the Blyde River Canyon - the world's third largest green canyon.

It's an area rich in tourism destinations and activities that includes the famed Panorama Route - one of South Africa's most scenically beautiful tourism routes that takes in the magnificent Northern Drakensberg Escarpment that rises almost 1800m above the South African lowveld west of the vibrant little safari town of Hoedspruit.

Don't miss out on this spectacular part of South Africa... Talk to us about putting together an amazing itinerary that includes the best of Kruger and the Greater Kruger region.