Arathusa Safari Lodge Review

We recently spent 3 nights at Arathusa Safari Lodge in South Africa. It was even better than I hoped and expected. The hospitality and service was amazing, the wildlife sightings were crazy, and the accomodations were beautiful. In this Arathusa Safari Lodge Review, I’ll tell you all about our stay, plus give you helpful tips and info for visiting, including how to get there, and more!

To see photos and stories from our safari drives, read my post of South African Photos to Inspire You!

South African Safari Photos to Inspire You

Arathusa Safari Lodge Location

Arathusa is located within the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, which is near the eastern border of South Africa. Sabi Sands is known for its big cat sightings (especially leopards). This area shares unfenced borders with Kruger National Park, so your opportunities for wildlife viewings are pretty huge. Over our three night stay, we saw leopards 3 times, lions 5 times, we saw all of the Big 5, saw elephants every day, multiple giraffes, and much more.

How to Get There

There are several ways to get to the lodge, depending on time constraints and budget.

Flight

Arathusa’s Private Airstrip

You can fly directly to Arathusa using FedAir Airlines. You will want to reach out to the lodge for pricing and booking information. Since you’ll arrive directly at the lodge, you’ll avoid a long drive from further airports, but this option isn’t quite as budget friendly as other options.

• We did this to get to the lodge and had an awesome experience! We were able to arrive in time for lunch & the afternoon game drive. This was also our first time flying on a smaller plane and we were lucky to have it all to ourselves – super cool!
• Before this, we spent a few days in Cape Town. So we flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg, then to the lodge. FedAir met us at the arrival section of Johannesburg Airport and took us to their private waiting area for our smaller flight. Their waiting area is amazing, it’s not your normal airport lodge! You can sit indoors or outdoors, they have espresso machines, sandwiches, cookies, and more.

Commercial Airport

Hoedspruit Airport: Hoedspruit is the closest commercial airport to Arathusa if you opt against the lodge’s private airstrip. It’s about a 2 hour drive from the lodge, so you’ll need to hire a driver or rent a car. (I highly advise getting a driver. The roads are bumpy and wild, and it’s much easier not to worry about a rental car).

• We used this airport when returning home from the lodge. We booked a private transfer through Sable Tours, which is who the lodge recommends and had a great experience.
• To book flights to or from Hoedspruit, the airlines you’ll look for are Airlink or CemAir. We flew on both during our trip and had no issues.

Johannesburg Airport: JNB is about a 7 hour drive to the lodge, but I’ve read it’s a very scenic drive.

By Road

Some people combine this area with a self-driving experience at Kruger National Park. From the Orpen Gate of Kruger, Arathusa is about a 1.5 hour drive. You will need to pay Sabi Sands gate fees upon entrance. For more information on driving to the lodge and gate fees, visit the Arathusa website.

Busy Bee Tips:

• If it’s within your budget, I’d recommend arriving via FedAir to the private airstrip, and leaving via Hoedspruit.
  • By arriving directly at the lodge, we had time to settle in and go on the afternoon game drive. If we had arrived to Hoedspruit and taken the 2 hour drive, we might have missed the afternoon drive.
  • The FedAir flights aren’t cheap, so this is why we opted to only use them one way and leave the lodge via Hoedspruit. (Remember, this option requires a 2 hour drive. So don’t forget to also book your transfer or rental car).
  • Flying on the smaller plane and seeing the FedAir “lounge” is an experience it itself. Since we landed at the lodge, we literally saw zebras from our plane window as we landed!
• Book your FedAir flights via the lodge.
  • To my knowledge, this is actually the only way to book flights on FedAir Airlines. I emailed the lodge and they set it all up for me.
  • This also ensures the lodge knows when you’re arriving, because they’ll need to send a jeep to come get your from the airstrip. It’s maybe a 5 min jeep ride to the reception area.
• Book road transfers directly through Sable Tours.
  • This is the road transfer company the lodge uses and recommends, so I felt confident they were safe and reliable (and they were)!
  • I say to book directly through them because the transfer rates they gave me were cheaper than the ones the lodge gave me. Also, since I booked with them directly, I had their contact information for any changes, updates, or questions. I did make sure the lodge knew we were using them and what time our pickup was to make things smooth.
• Don’t arrive to Hoedspruit 2 hours early.
  • This airport is super small, so I’d recommend getting there maybe 1 to 1.5 hrs before your flight max. If you do have a lot of time to waste before your flight though, the airport has a restaurant, cafe, outdoor patio, and shop.

Arathusa Safari Lodge Accomodations

I want to quickly mention, this is a beautiful lodge with modern amenities. When I told a lot of people we were going on an African safari, they pictured us sleeping in tents and “roughing it.” That was not the case for us at all. We had a beautiful outdoor shower, as well as an indoor shower, a huge clawfoot bathtub, king sized bed, coffee maker in our room, our own private patio with a watering hole view, and more. This was by no means camping!

I also want to mention this entire lodge is unfenced. Any animal can wander anywhere on the property at any time! Guests in the bush facing suites told us they saw a leopard from their room, there were elephants and hippos on the property everyday, we had a cudu outside our room for two days, there were monkeys stealing bread (😂), and more. Everyday is different and a total adventure!

Room Types

At Arathusa, you have two options for your accomodation. They offer either watering hole facing suites or bush facing suites. We had a watering hole facing suite and I couldn’t have been happier with that choice. All rooms include private safes, coffee stations, stocked mini bars, mosquito nets around the beds, and more lovely amenities.

Bush Facing Suites:

• The bush facing suites are on the other side of the property, so I never had a chance to view them, but the Arathusa website offers virtual tours to help you make your choice.
• These suites offer their own private plunge pools that face the brush, offering opportunities to see wildlife.
• These are a short walk from the lodge. At night, the guests in these rooms had guides walk them back, just incase any wildlife was on the property.
• These rooms offer indoor showers, indoor clawfoot tubs, and large outdoor showers.

Watering Hole Facing Suites:

• These obviously face the watering hole on the lodge property. During our entire stay, we could walk right out of our suite and see hippos, elephants, impalas, and more at this water hole.
• These suites have private patios with 2 chairs to sit and watch the watering hole. We loved doing this after breakfast. When else in your life can you sit on your private patio and stare at elephants playing in the water? 😍
• Each suite has an indoor shower, huge indoor clawfoot tub, and a large outdoor private shower. The outdoor private shower feels like a room itself, it’s so big. One day while showering out here, I watched monkeys run across the tops of the lodges next door.
• Click here for a virtual walkthrough of the suites.
• The pictures below are taken directly outside of our suite!

Wildlife Viewing

Obviously this is the reason you’re on safari, so it’s pretty important! As I’ve mentioned a few times in this post already, we had plenty of opportunities to see wildlife, even just from our suite. Plus the twice-a-day game drives were always a hit! We saw everything we wanted to and then some.

Wildlife at the Lodge

We frequently saw monkeys playing in the trees on the property or running around near the suites. They even stole a woman’s bread during lunch one day. They seem to be frequent visitors at the lodge, because the guides would yell at them as if they knew them. It was fun to watch!

We saw elephants and hippos playing in the watering hole on the property every day of our trip. When we got to the lodge, we were given a tour, and elephants were right there. Quite the welcome! Impalas, cudus, and other animals were also frequently by the watering hole too.

The property is completely unfenced, so you can see various wildlife at any time around the lodge!

Game Drives

Game drives are done twice a day and typically last around 3 hours. I’ll go more into detail about the daily schedule later on in the post. You go out with your group, a driver, and a tracker. The driver obviously drives the jeep, points things out, and gives a lot of fun facts. The tracker focuses on tracking animals by watching for prints on the path, animal droppings, and various other signs. Hearing them describe how they can differentiate animal genders, ages, species, and more just from the paw prints on the path was incredible.

The craziest thing to me was that the tracker would sometimes hop off the jeep and walk around the brush on foot, looking for animals. Sometimes he’d see leopard prints and go wandering off to find said leopard – on foot! And our driver would take us miles away to see something else, and once he got a call from the tracker that he found what he was looking for, we’d go back. I just still can’t get over that the trackers are so comfortable walking around, knowing they could find leopards, or lions, or rhinos, or something!

We were put into groups and we had the same group for our entire stay. You go on game drives with your group, as well as, eat meals with your group. You also have the same driver and tracker for your entire stay. It was fun getting to know the other couples in our group! We even met a couple that lives a few hours from us in Texas!

I have an entire post about our game drive sightings and experiences so click here to read through that! 😍

Daily Schedule

Game Drives

Like I mentioned above, game drives happen twice a day. You’ll go for drives early in the morning, around 530 or 6am and then again around 3 or 330 pm. The exact times are given to you when you arrive, but they vary by season based on sunrise/sunset times. These are obviously times when it’s cooler, and also when the animals are hungry and more active. Typically the game drives lasted around 3 hours each before returning to the lodge. You typically stop for a small break during each drive. On the morning drives, we’d have coffee or tea and snacks during our break. For the evening drives, we’d watch the sunset and have cocktails during our break.

Meals

All meals are included in the price of your stay. The lodge serves breakfast, lunch, high-tea, and dinner. They also serve coffee and light snacks in the morning before the first game drive, and light snacks after the evening drive, before dinner. They do have a full bar and espresso machine available as well.

Free Time

Between breakfast and lunch, you have a few hours to yourself. This is when you can go on bush walks with your guide, visit the spa, take naps, swim in the pool, sit on your patio and watch the watering hole, or visit the main lodge to use the wifi. There’s no shortage of things to do during these few hours. Since we got up early every morning for the drive, we usually took a nap and lounged. Nothing like reading a book on our patio while watching elephants. We also did a bush walk one day and swam in the pool! More on those later.

Daily Itinerary With Times

This is an example of how our days went.

530 am: Wake up call from lodge. This is when they put out coffee, tea, and light snacks.

600 am: Leave for morning game drive.

900 am (ish): return to the lodge for breakfast.

after breakfast – 200 pm: free time.

200 pm: lunch.

230 or 300 pm: high-tea – if you didn’t want lunch that day, you could have high-tea, which was light snacks and pastries.

330 pm: leave for afternoon game drive

630 pm (ish): return from game drive and freshen up for dinner.

700 pm: dinner

Facilities and Activites

There is honestly no shortage of ways to spend your free time while at the lodge. The suites don’t have WIFI or televisions, which I found nice and relaxing. There were so many other ways to spend my time, I never found myself missing those things.

Bush Walks

These are done around the property, in the brush. Your schedule these with your guide and they typically happen right after breakfast. Ours lasted maybe 30 minutes, and it was a cool experience. It’s also a good way to stretch your legs, because a lot of time is spent sitting with the game drives. During the bush walk, our guide showed us ways to survive in the brush and how they track animals. He showed us plants they could eat if they got stuck in the brush, plants they could use as toothbrushes, and even plants that can become hand-soap when mixed with water. He also explained how they know when animals tracks are fresh or a few hours old, or how they can tell if an animal is pregnant by looking at the tracks. It was a lot of cool information and I totally recommend doing this!

• Busy Bee Tip: We visited in early May and it was still super warm in the afternoons, so it was hot during our walk! Maybe sure you dress appropriately and bring water on your walk! They also are strict about the colors you wear for the walks. Do not wear white, as animals will see you as prey,

Spa

The lodge has a small spa with various offerings. The afternoons are the popular time to visit for facials, nail services, or massages. We actually booked a couple’s package, which they do at night, after returning from the evening game drive. We did a couple’s massage, got to soak in a milk bath, and then were served a private dinner overlooking the watering hole. The dinner setup was like a romantic movie. They had lights in a circle around our table and champagne set up for us. It was a lovely experience. The spa prices were WAY less than what we’d pay in America as well, so I totally think it’s worth visiting one day.

Pool

There is a beautiful pool that looks straight out over the watering hole. They also had a few lounge chairs around the pool. I will say, the pool was freezing when we were there! It felt like doing a cold plunge. But the views from the pool were so incredible and the afternoons were so hot, that I didn’t care. If you’re visiting in the summer months, bring a swimsuit. Nothing beats sitting in the pool with a cocktail, watching elephants play right in front of you.

Store

There is a very small store on site that mainly sells souvenirs. They call it the “bush mall.” They didn’t have much for basic needs, such as toothpaste or anything, so try to bring everything you’d need! There isn’t anything available nearby if you forget something.

WIFI

If you do need WIFI during your stay, they have fast WIFI in the main lodge area. This is where the bar and espresso machine is, as well as were we gathered before each drive.

Staff / Service

I don’t have much to say here, except that I was so surprised at how kind everyone was. They have someone greet you the minute you arrive, and the friendliness just keeps on coming. There is someone greeting you with a hot towel, whenever you get back from a game drive. The service during meal time was wonderful and they brought us whatever we needed. They frequently asked if we needed anything extra in our rooms, and if we did, they’d stock our rooms with it while we were out on a drive. One night I asked for wine in our room, and it was all set up when we got back! I even asked the manager if she had any spare outlet adapters at the lodge, and while she didn’t, she brought her own from home for me to use. The hospitality and kindness was never lacking and it definitely added to the whole experience.

Dining Experience

All meals are included in your accomodation price. Most cocktails, wine, beer, coffee, tea, and soft drinks are all included as well. There is a cocktail bar and espresso bar available. You can also request items be brought to your room as well.

They have multiple options offered to you for each meal, which you’ll select at the meal prior. So you select your lunch at breakfast, and your dinner at lunch. Each meal is typically served at a table on the deck with a view of the watering hole. You sit at the same table, with your safari group, for the entire stay.

Breakfast: We were typically offered a special (eggs benedict, etc) or basic options such as omelets, english breakfast, scrambled eggs, etc. They also had a spread of jams, cheeses, meats, and breads while you wait for your meal to be prepared.

Lunch: This was usually a lighter meal, but once again, they always had options. We were served soups, salads, chicken sandwiches, fruits, and more. They also had a spread of meats, cheeses, breads, and butters.

Dinner: Dinner is usually a bigger meal including an appetizer, main course, and dessert. Our main courses were usually meat based, but they did offer a vegetarian option as well. They occassionally do fun, themed nights. One night during our stay they walked us over to a bonfire area, where they had a large buffet and fire set up.

They also have small snacks available in the morning before the game drive, on your coffee break during the game drive, at high-tea before the afternoon drive, at the cocktail stop during the afternoon drive, and before dinner. You won’t go hungry during your stay!!

Overall Experience

I loved EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of my stay at Arathusa Safari Lodge. On most of my trips, I have a great time, but usually feel like once I’ve seen something, I wouldn’t need to go back and see it again. That’s not the case with South Africa or Arathusa. I would 100000% go back in the future. Somtimes, I have a hard time even describing this trip to people, because it was life-changing on a lot of levels. I don’t think it’s something you can fully understand unless you’ve been to Africa, but the culture, the experiences, the people, the wildlife, and everything is so amazing. It was truly the trip of a lifetime.