The cheapest bed
Royal Gidlas Guesthouse
A locally owned guesthouse in the Saulspoort area near Bakgatla gate, listed on Booking.com at R653 a night for two in October 2026, less than one foreign adult's daily park fee.
South Africa · national park since 1979
Pilanesberg National Park Independent Guides & Information
A ring of hills about 25 km across, the eroded root of a 1,395-million-year-old volcano, with lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo inside it and no malaria, about two and a half hours from Johannesburg. Since 1 December 2025 a foreign adult pays R748 a day at a card-only gate. This guide prices that honestly, lists every place to stay at all four gates, and says where the official record goes quiet.
Photo: Ymblanter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The tariff in force since 1 December 2025, rebuilt from base fee plus levy, not the R110 figure still on half the internet
Card-only gates, no Wild Card, and the disputed foreign child rate shown as disputed
Every place to stay, including the Mogwase and Saulspoort guesthouses the booking portals leave out
Hides, resorts and the airport described as they are in 2026, after the fires
Where is Pilanesberg National Park, and which gate?
Pilanesberg sits in North West Province about 50 km north of Rustenburg, with Sun City on its southern edge. Four public gates lead in: Manyane in the east and Bakgatla in the north-east, both off the R510, and Bakubung and Kwa-Maritane in the south, off the R556 by Sun City. Four tarred roads meet near Mankwe Dam in the middle of the crater.
- 1 Manyane Gate Main eastern gate off the R510 via Mogwase; Tshwene Drive (tar) runs to the centre
- 2 Manyane Resort and campsite Golden Leopard resort just inside Manyane gate; campsite open, restaurant and reception lost in the February 2024 fire
- 3 Bakgatla Gate North-eastern gate near Saulspoort (Moruleng); Kgabo Drive (tar) runs south
- 4 Bakgatla Resort Golden Leopard resort at Bakgatla gate: campsites from R322, chalets from R3,138 (2026)
- 5 Bakubung Gate South-western gate near Ledig, west of Sun City; Kubu Drive (tar) runs north
- 6 Kwa-Maritane Gate Southern gate off the R556, about 7 km from the Sun City resort
- 7 Pilanesberg Centre The old magistrate's court in the middle of the park; 2026 restaurant status unconfirmed
- 8 Mankwe Dam Hide Hide on the park's largest dam, reached by a raised walkway; rebuilt after the 2018 fire and reopened in 2019
- 9 Ratlhogo Hide Hide at Ratlhogo waterhole in the north of the park
- 10 Malatse Hide Hide in the north-east, between Bakgatla and Manyane
- 11 Makorwane Dam Hide Hide on Makorwane Dam, west of the Pilanesberg Centre
- 12 Ruighoek Dam Hide Hide on Ruighoek Dam in the west of the park
- 13 Batlhako Dam Dam and hide in the far west of the public road network
- 14 Iron Age Site Archaeological site near Manyane; closed for fence repairs and announced to reopen on 3 October 2026
- 15 Sun City The resort on the park's southern border, the gateway for Bakubung and Kwa-Maritane gates
- Pan with a hide or viewing platform
- Dam
- Gate or barrier on the map
- Tarred trunk road
Why this guide exists, and where the numbers come from
This guide is written by people who have overlanded much of Africa in their own vehicles, and for whom the national parks were what stayed. The information about them online was usually missing, wrong or years old: fees from three tariff sheets ago, camps that had burned, airports that had closed.
So this guide runs on dated sources rather than copied operator pages: the tariff checked rand for rand against the board's own announcement, thirty-year climate normals rather than brochure weather, and what the camps publish themselves. Every claim carries a date. Where North West Parks is silent, so are we, apart from saying that it is silent.
Nothing here is for sale. Listing a camp is free and no position on any page can be bought. Some outbound links earn us a small commission, and that changes neither the order of a list nor a single figure on these pages.
Found something out of date? Tell us and it changes the same week.
Where to stay in Pilanesberg National Park
Fifty-one places to stay, from a campsite at Bakgatla gate to guided-only lodges on the private reserve on the western side. These four are not the best four; they are the four that mark out the range.
Run by the park's own resort company
Bakgatla Resort
Golden Leopard Resorts' camp at Bakgatla gate: campsites from R322 a night and chalets for two from R3,138 with breakfast, so you are on the road when the gate opens.
Mid-range, meals included
Kwa Maritane Bush Lodge
A Legacy lodge at its own gate on the south side, half board from R6,222 per room, and you can still self-drive the public roads between meals.
The top end
Shepherd's Tree Game Lodge
An aha lodge in an exclusive-use zone of the main park, R6,750 per person sharing with all meals and two guided activities a day (May to September 2026, agent rate).
Everything you need to plan a visit
Entry fees
R748 a day per foreign adult and R168 per car since December 2025, card only. South Africans pay R168 with ID.
See the fees →Lodges & camps
From a R322 campsite at Bakgatla to guided-only lodges on the private reserve on the western side, plus guesthouses at the gates.
Browse lodges →Getting there
About 2.5 to 3 hours from Johannesburg by road. The airport next to Sun City has had no commercial flights since 2023.
Plan the route →Drives, hides & balloon
Self-drive the four tarred roads, sit at Mankwe hide, or book a R612 guided drive or a balloon flight over the crater.
See activities →Wildlife
Lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and cheetah, brown hyena rather than spotted, and more than 300 bird species.
What you'll see →Best time to visit
May to October for game at the dams and cold dawns; December to February for green hills, storms and Sun City crowds.
Pick your month →Our own research
We priced every park in Africa
We collect the official tariff of every park we cover, convert it, and hold each one to the same standard day. Twenty-nine parks are in the index now, the famous ones included. These three pages come out of that table.
The most expensive safari parks in Africa
Ngorongoro charges $278 for a standard day and $148 of that is the descent into the crater. The ranking straight down, with the line item behind each number.
See the ranking →The most expensive parks for self-drivers
One person, one car, no one to split the vehicle fee or the campsite with. Uganda's foreign-vehicle tariff turns the order upside down.
See the self-drive ranking →Africa's most expensive published safari beds
The highest nightly rates any camp in our network puts in writing, and why the real top of the market names no price at all.
See the rates →Latest updates to this guide
Every change to this guide, dated.
- 2026-10-06 First edition of the guide: the Pilanesberg tariff in force since 1 December 2025 (R748 a day per foreign adult, card only), all fifty-one places to stay with their ownership, from the Golden Leopard campsites to the guesthouses in Mogwase and Saulspoort, and a page for every month of the year. See the page