An Awesome and Affordable South African Safari – Addo Elephant Park

The highlight of my family’s one month trip to South Africa this spring was our self-drive safari in Addo Elephant Park. South Africa offers many different types of safaris throughout the country – from luxurious one week safaris to the one-day self-drive ones. Since we travel full-time on a budget, the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a week safari just wasn’t going to happen. We heard that the self-drive tours are still fantastic and at a fraction of the cost – and it was so true! AMAZING!!

Since we were traveling along the southern coast of South Africa in an area called The Garden Route, we decided to try the Addo Elephant Park which was the most accessible while still being one of the best safari options in the country. We found a cute family hotel in the town of Addo and started our adventure super early in the morning and so excited to see “The Big 5” (elephants, lions, water buffalo, rhino and leopard) up close on the African plains.

After entering the park, there were dozens of different routes to take within the massive park and it was so much fun to be able to go at our own pace – knowing we had 10 hours of safari time available, instead of the several hours of a traditional safari. In the first 2 hours, we saw many amazing animals up close and were able to stop and observe them whenever we wanted. But where were the elephants? We could see that they had been all over the roads that we were on (based on their droppings that were everywhere), but we hadn’t seen any and we were getting a bit frustrated. Then, out in the distance, we could see the enormous creatures coming our way. Soon after, we found one of their main watering holes and we watched in amazement as the elephant families arrived one after the other. It was so much fun to stop and watch the babies play and even the wart hogs and zebras all share the watering hole like they were all one big family.

As we drove on, we ended up seeing many other watering holes filled with elephants playing and cooling off. But, we did have a pretty scary encounter where the elephants just got too close for comfort! While we were watching a few elephants at a small watering hole on our right, a safari jeep pulled up in front of us and another car stopped behind us. All of a sudden, coming through the bush on our left, was a large group of elephants heading directly towards us. Since we were boxed in by the other vehicles, these enormous animals walked directly in front of our car – literally two feet away from the front of our car! Their entire family was there – dad, mom, baby, teenager, and many others all in a line. We were really freaked out as the elephants ran out of room at the small watering hole and began walking straight for us. Luckily the car behind us moved just in time so that we could back up (frantically!) and allow enough room for all the elephants. After a few minutes of stress, all seemed ok and we were able to relax and enjoy one of the most amazing scenes ever! (I will share our video of this experience once I edit it – the entire thing was captured on video with a few “freaked out” bits I will need to cut out!)

We ended up spending about 8 hours driving throughout this incredible park and had a family adventure of a lifetime!! Here are just some of our hundreds of photos taken that day. Enjoy!

Have you ever been on a self-drive safari? Share your adventures with us!