With the school half-term holidays only a few weeks away, and Easter following on shortly afterwards, we thought this would be a good time to look at the most popular safari lodges for families visiting South Africa’s malaria-free regions.

A quick glance at the listing below show that the game reserves in the Eastern Cape (Kariega, Kwandwe, Lalibela, Shamwari, and Amakhala) are particularly popular with families, and safari lodges in this area take the first 7 spots. This highlights the great appeal of South Africa’s most popular family holiday route  which is a few days in Cape Town, followed by some time exploring the Garden Route Coastline and a safari in one of these malaria free reserves.

The remainder of the top 10 is made up with lodges in the Madikwe reserve up in the far north of the country on the border with South Africa, and somewhat surprisingly no lodges from The Waterberg area feature at all despite it’s convenient location just a couple of hours outside Johannesburg.

The Kruger area and KwaZulu-Natal are both considered low-risk malaria areas and are therefore excluded from this listing.

The full listing is:

1 ) Kariega Lodge
2 ) Kwandwe Ecca Lodge
3 ) Mark’s Camp
4 ) Long Lee Manor
5 ) Woodbury Lodge
6 ) Amakhala Safari Lodge
7 ) Leeuwenbosch
8 ) Little Madikwe
9 ) Jaci’s Tree Lodge
10 ) Madikwe River Lodge

This listing is ranked on the number of nights children under 12 have spent at each lodge based on recent bookings made by Travel Butlers.

For the 10th consecutive year, Shamwari Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape has been awarded the World’s Leading Safari and Game Reserve and the World’s Leading Conservation Company at the prestigious World Travel Awards gala ceremony.

On receiving the 2 awards the CEO, Adrian Gardiner said: “We are very proud to have been recognized as the best by our industry partners worldwide for 10 straight years. When we began, conservation was a small part of tourism. Today, we are very encouraged that more tourists are aware that we must sustain and preserve our environment for the generations to come. It is our firm commitment that tourism should benefit all people, not just the few.”

Tracey & Paul Campbell of Travel Butlers were delighted to attend a recent event held at the South African Embassy in London hosted by the Mantis Collection, South African Airways and The South Africa FIFA World Cup Organising Committee.

The 120+ guests from the travel industry were treated to many fascinating speakers including Virginia McKenna (founder of the Born Free Foundation), Will Carling (the former England Rugby captain speaking about his recent family safari in South Africa), and Adrian Gardiner (founder of the Shamwari Reserve and Chairman of the Mantis Collection).

The evening was a huge success, and given the prestigious location and illustrious speakers, Tracey & Paul were particularly honoured to receive The Adrian Gardiner Award For Innovation on behalf of Travel Butlers