Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve

Lots of animals to see, but may take time to find.

Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is huge! There are lots of animals, but if you are driving yourself through (as we did), they may be hard to find (probably depends a bit on the season). We had a couple stretches of maybe 45 minutes where we didn't see anything. We spent about 5-6 hours there and probably only covered 60-70% of the park. The roads are fine, though there are lots of potholes on the tarred roads. The dirt roads we did drive were borderline too much for our small car, but manageable. We had a nice time, enjoyed seeing all the animals we did find and got some good pictures. There are plenty of facilities available throughout the park, so it made for an easy place to spend the day. Several picnic areas are available as well. I think that if we go back, we'd try to go at a different time of year, because all of the watering holes were dry and I suspect many animals were sticking close to certain areas with water that we didn't find.

Self driving through the game reserve. guided safaris possible. Take your time.

An challenging place to practice your wildlife photography

Lots of rhinos, really bad roads. Not as crowded as the Kruger area, better "bush experience".

Wildlife is superb but can be patchy. Bush is very thick in parts. Some superb scenery. Have no yet stayed in reserve camps.

Great park, but lots of private vehicles everywhere and our ranger decided to harp on about her positive views about hunting for an hour -- so ironically I wished I was in a private vehicle! We saw fantastic rhino, but sadly KZN has a significant drought at the moment which was very noticeable and meant pretty poor game viewing in areas.

Excellent wildlife viewing at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi...elephants galore!

I've been to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi 2 years in a row while staying at a lodge nearby. It's a fantastic park with lots and lots of roads to explore. The traffic isn't light, but it's not super crowded, there's definitely places where you can find animals/birds on your own and feel like you're completely isolated.
I was able to watch the large herd of elephants moving through the park one morning for 30-45 minutes. I saw maybe 200+ elephants all together.

Best place to see black rhino.

We spent four days at the Imfolozi reserve at Mpila camp, and it was great! Mpila is located on a hilltop with sweeping views of the Reserve from the bungalows. We saw both black and white rhino (whites every day), as well as elephant, lion, a dozen species of antelope (including nyala right outside our bungalow). The bungalows were nice, clean, and very reasonable cost-wise. Less crowded than Kruger, with the same excellent wildlife viewing. .. Birding was also great. We're from California and clocked about eighty species in the four days.

Unbelievable, breathtaking and experience of a lifetime

We spent an afternoon at iMfolozi and it was so amazing... For September it was quite warm, but breezy in the landrovers. Our driver was excellent and stopped on call as soon as someone spotted movement and always gave us plenty of time to get photographs. I never imagined I'd be so so close up to a cape buffalo or so many white rhinos. The elephant crossing was superb. Lots of giraffes up close and also baboons. We saw zebras in the distance. Our driver got a radio call about lions, so he took us directly to the site. No male lions, but the females were there, also got to see the rare Nyala, male, female and a calf. A fantastic experience. There were plenty of birds to see as well, Marshall Eagles, Bateluers and Ibis. All in all, a highly recommended visit, and I saw more wildlife there than I did at Kruger the day before.

This is a great reserve to see Rhino. The roads aren't great but worth the effort as the scenery is beautiful.