Addo Elephant National Park

Addo Elephant National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Addo is the easiest big-game park in South Africa to add to a Garden Route trip, forty minutes from Gqeberha, the city formerly called Port Elizabeth, and it is malaria-free, which makes it the choice for families and for anyone not going as far as Kruger. It can be driven in your own car on tarred and gravel roads, paying the daily conservation fee at the main gate, and that is how most South Africans see it. The tours sold for it are half- and full-day safaris in open vehicles with a guide from Gqeberha, Jeffreys Bay or the guesthouses around the Sundays River valley, which are better than a self-drive for spotting and for the commentary;

the full-day versions include lunch and reach the quieter southern sections. Two-day packages combine a day in Addo with a night at a private reserve nearby such as Amakhala or Schotia, where night drives are allowed. Cruise passengers docking in Gqeberha are offered shore excursions to the park. The park itself runs sunrise, sunset and night drives from the main camp in open vehicles, booked at reception, and horse trails and a hop-on guide service for self-drivers. Longer Garden Route tours from Cape Town finish here after five or six days along the coast.

Visiting Addo Elephant National Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1931 to save the last eleven elephants of the Eastern Cape, hunted almost to extinction by farmers, and it now holds more than six hundred, the densest elephant population in Africa, in a landscape of thick valley bushveld, spekboom thicket and open flats. The main game area around Addo main camp is where the elephants gather, especially at the Hapoor water hole, named after a bull with a torn ear that ruled the herd for decades, where dozens drink and bathe together in the dry months in full view of the road.

Lions were reintroduced in 2003 and are seen regularly, along with buffalo, black rhino, leopard, spotted hyena, zebra, kudu, warthog and the flightless dung beetle, which has right of way on the roads by park rule. The park has grown into a series of sections that stretch from the Karoo to the coast, including the Zuurberg mountains, the Colchester dunes and the marine reserve off the coast with the Bird Island gannet colony and great white sharks, which is why it markets the Big Seven, adding whales and sharks to the classic five. The Alexandria dune field is one of the largest coastal dune systems in the southern hemisphere. Most visitors see only the main section, which is enough for the elephants.

Addo Elephant National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The gates are open from 7 am to 6.30 pm in summer and 7 am to 5.30 pm in winter, and the camp drives run before and after those hours. The dry winter from May to September concentrates the elephants at the water holes and keeps the bush open, and it is cool and pleasant; summer from November to February is hot, green and busy, with South African school holidays over Christmas filling the camps. Elephants are at the water in the middle of the day in the heat, which makes Addo unusual among safari parks. Allow a full day, or a half-day if you only want the herds at Hapoor. The Sundays River valley has citrus farms and river cruises, and Jeffreys Bay's surf beaches are an hour away.