How does a stay in this guide support the featured causes?

When you book accommodation from this guide through Spekboom, a portion of the booking commission is directed to the linked causes. You can also donate to them directly.

Which causes does the Zululand guide feature?

This guide features Zululand Conservation Trust, Wildlife ACT, Endangered Wildlife Trust.

How many places to stay are in the Zululand guide?

This guide currently includes 8 places to stay. Nightly rates range from about R1,200 to R22,680.

Rhino Country | Spekboom

Insider Guide: Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal

Rhino Country

Safari lodges in the sand forest, and the trust keeping Zululand wild

Zululand does not look like the postcard Africa of open plains. It is closer, greener, more secretive. Fever tree forests glow yellow along the pans, sand forest closes over the road, and then a clearing opens and there is a white rhino, grazing like it has all the time in the world. For a while, it nearly had none.

This is the province where rhino conservation was invented. In the 1960s, rangers in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi pulled the southern white rhino back from the edge, and every white rhino you will ever see descends from that rescue. Today the work continues on community land and private reserves across Zululand, and the lodges below help pay for it.

The trust in the thorns

The Zululand Conservation Trust works out of Mkuze, partnering with protected areas and the communities that border them. Endangered species monitoring, rhino care, community projects: the unglamorous, continuous work that keeps a reserve more valuable alive than poached. When you book a stay linked to the trust, you are effectively paying a small share of a ranger's month.

Alongside it, Wildlife ACT runs endangered species monitoring across Zululand's reserves, and the Endangered Wildlife Trust works on everything from wild dog range expansion to vulture safe zones. This corner of the country carries an outsized share of South Africa's conservation load.

Stays that fund the trust

These stays are directly linked to the Zululand Conservation Trust. A share of every booking supports its rhino and community work.

From R1,200

self catering

Penwarn Farm

471616

Supports: BirdLife South Africa, Endangered Wildlife Trust, Wildlife ACT, Zululand Conservation Trust

From R22,680

tented safari camp

Rhino Sands Safari Camp

1055

Supports: Zululand Conservation Trust, Endangered Wildlife Trust

Land returned, wilderness restored

North of Hluhluwe, the Munyawana Conservancy tells one of the great land stories in African conservation. Land was returned to the Makhasa and Mnqobokazi communities, who chose to keep it wild, and the safari lodges there now operate on community-owned ground. Seven ecosystems fold into one reserve: sand forest, mountain, marsh, savanna. Cheetah do well here. So do the schools and clinics the lodges help fund.