ZASabi Sand, Greater Kruger, South Africa
Leopards in the Sabi Sand
The best place in the world to see a leopard, and it is not close.
Watch it live firstWhen the light is best
September, October, April
Computed from five years of daily cloud, rain and temperature at -24.78, 31.47. Some cloud is what makes a sky burn, so this is not the same as the driest month and often disagrees with one.
- Cloud then
- 34%
- Wet days
- 4
- Daytime high
- 29°C
When to actually go
May to September is dry, sparse and easiest to see into. The green season from November brings newborns and far better skies.
This is the window for the reason you are going, and it is a different question from the light. Where the two disagree, this one wins. An empty river under a perfect sky is still an empty river.
- Nights
- 5
- Getting in
- Johannesburg, then a short hop to Skukuza
- From, per person
- $5,400
Why here
The Sabi Sand has no fence with Kruger and decades of habituated leopards, which means sightings that would be a career highlight elsewhere happen on a Tuesday afternoon. Guides can go off road here, which is the actual reason the sightings are so much better than in the national park next door.
What you actually do
- Two game drives a day, off road, with a tracker on the bonnet
- Walking safari with an armed guide, which changes the scale of everything
- The Blyde River Canyon and Lisbon Falls on the drive in or out
- Sundowners somewhere with no road, which is the point of the whole thing
However many of you
On your own
Lodges are small and communal here. A solo traveller eats with everybody and shares a vehicle, which is the normal way to do it.
Two to six
Six fills a vehicle. Ask for a private one anyway if the budget stretches, because it decides how long you stay with a leopard.
Seven or more
Take a small lodge exclusively. Eight to twelve is exactly the size most Sabi Sand lodges are built for.
Book it
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