Luxury Safari Lodges in South Africa

Going on a safari ranks among the world’s great travel experiences, and South Africa has some of the continent’s finest lodges. On our most recent foray there, we stayed in four of the best, each with its own unique style and focus.

&Beyond Tengile River Lodge, set in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve next to Kruger National Park, offers immense accommodations — each has its own broad infinity pool — and superlative game viewing. We saw numerous lions, rhinos, elephants and buffalo, and we were also fortunate to have excellent leopard sightings. This property dazzled in almost all respects.

Jabulani is an older lodge in the Kapama Private Game Reserve, and it has a more traditional style. That said, its open-plan accommodations are also quite spacious and plush. They even have woodburning fireplaces, in addition to decks with plunge pools. We hand-fed orphaned elephants who live in the reserve — an unforgettable experience — and we saw all of the “big five.”

Kateka doesn’t share the Kruger-adjacent Klaserie Private Nature Reserve with very many other lodges, which means we only occasionally encountered other vehicles. We had time entirely alone with a pride of lions feasting on an elephant’s corpse, for example. This highly contemporary lodge makes a relaxing last stop on a safari thanks to its well-appointed spa and a magnificent infinity pool that overlooks a water hole frequented by game.

Finally, &Beyond Phinda Forest Lodge, located south of Kruger in a private reserve near the coast, is well worth working into an itinerary. Its glass-walled accommodations have a “Zulu-Zen” design inspiration and are spaced for privacy amid a rare sand-forest ecosystem. We saw all the big five here except for leopard, but we didn’t much miss them, since we got an extraordinary look at some cheetahs instead.