What a visitor's money does in South Africa: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
South African Rand (ZAR) · 1 EUR = 18.6 ZAR · 1 USD = 16.3 ZAR
The rand is weak against the euro and the dollar, which makes Kruger the cheapest way to see the Big Five anywhere in Africa — a self-drive week here costs what two nights in a Botswana camp does. Cards work at every rest camp; carry some cash for the community stalls at the gates.
Avoid: standalone machines at petrol stations outside the park
Use: Standard Bank, FNB, Absa, Nedbank — at Skukuza and in Nelspruit
Cards work at every rest camp. Carry some cash for the community craft stalls at the gates.
Rest-camp restaurants are decent and the braai is the point: every unit has one, every shop sells boerewors and firelighters, and grilling your own dinner while hyenas call outside the fence is the whole Kruger experience. Stock up in Nelspruit or at Skukuza’s supermarket.
Try a braai (BBQ) experience, biltong (dried meat), and bobotie (Cape Malay curry dish). Wine is incredible and very affordable.
Knysna oysters, snoek smoked over open wood, and biltong for the drive. Braai is a social form rather than a meal. The wine at the western end — Hermanus and the Hemel-en-Aarde valley — is Pinot Noir country and largely unknown outside South Africa.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
