Sleep Inside the Parks

Every bed booked inside a park is direct revenue for the agency protecting it. Rangers, fences, alien vegetation clearing, fire management: the unromantic budget lines of conservation are funded substantially by people choosing to sleep inside rather than outside. It is the rare case where the most atmospheric option is also the most useful one.

Book the smallest camp you can find, not the biggest: the famous camps have shops and fuel, but the satellite and bush camps have the silence. In fynbos reserves, take the cottage with the fireplace and no electricity and thank yourself later. And everywhere, the rule of the parks applies: the hour after the gate closes and the hour before it opens are the whole point.