The cheapest way in
False Bay campsites (Lister's Point)
A state campsite at Lister's Point on the western arm of the lake, R180 unpowered or R220 powered for two on the Ezemvelo 2023/24 tariff, with sand forest trails of 2, 7 and 9 km close by.
South Africa · World Heritage since 1999
iSimangaliso Wetland Park Independent Guides & Information
220 km of coast from the St Lucia estuary to Kosi Bay at the Mozambique border, where the last published count found 1,004 hippos in the St Lucia system and loggerhead and leatherback turtles nest from November. This guide gives the gate fee for each of the park's sections, every place to stay, and the camps that changed operator on 1 March 2026.
Photo: Visit Africa Publishers
The 2024/25 gate table section by section, the last iSimangaliso has published, with its expiry date and the 2025/26 figures that circulate without a document
Every state camp priced on the last readable tariff and marked for the 1 March 2026 handover from Ezemvelo to the Authority
The real drive times between sections, including the 85 km road to Maphelane across the water from St Lucia
Hippo, crocodile and turtle figures traced to the count they came from, and the inflated ones set aside
Where is iSimangaliso Wetland Park, and which gate do you use?
The park runs 220 km up the KwaZulu-Natal coast from Maphelane to Kosi Bay, every section reached from the N2 north of Durban. St Lucia town, 207 km from King Shaka airport, has no gate; Bhangazi Gate 2 km north leads to Cape Vidal, the Dukuduku and Nhlozi gates to the Western Shores, and Sodwana, uMkhuze and Kosi Bay each have their own.
- 1 Maphelane South bank of the St Lucia mouth, highest vegetated dunes; closed since late 2018 and 85 km by road from St Lucia
- 2 Sugarloaf campsite, St Lucia Estuary-edge state campsite in town, 92 powered sites; the boat cruises leave nearby and there is no gate
- 3 Bhangazi Gate Eastern Shores gate about 2 km north of St Lucia town; R130 per international adult (2024/25)
- 4 uMthoma Aerial Boardwalk Canopy boardwalk on the Western Shores, through the Dukuduku and Nhlozi gates
- 5 Mission Rocks Rock pools 16 km south of Cape Vidal; the Bats Cave walk of about 2 km at low tide; unsafe for swimming
- 6 Charter's Creek Western Shores camp on the lake, 25 km from St Lucia; tendered as a 20-year concession
- 7 Cape Vidal Beach, snorkelling reef and state camp, 34 km and about 53 minutes from St Lucia
- 8 False Bay Western arm of the lake near Hluhluwe; campsites at Lister's Point and trails of 2, 7 and 9 km
- 9 eMshopi Gate uMkhuze gate near Mkuze town off the N2
- 10 Mantuma camp, uMkhuze The state camp in uMkhuze: rest huts, chalets and safari tents, 2h20 from St Lucia
- 11 iNsumo Pan Ramsar-listed pan with hippo, crocodile and a pink-backed pelican breeding colony; picnic site and fig forest walk
- 12 Jesser Point, Sodwana Bay The boat launch for the dive reefs, which are named by their distance from here
- 13 Lake Sibaya South Africa's largest natural freshwater lake, about 7,750 ha; no gate, 4x4 sand tracks
- 14 Mabibi Coastal Forest beach with the community-run Mabibi Beach Camp and Thonga Beach Lodge; 4x4 access
- 15 Kosi Bay rest camp State camp on Lake Nhlange, 3h44 from St Lucia; get the Kosi Mouth permit here a day ahead
- 16 Kosi Bay Mouth Estuary mouth and snorkelling 'aquarium' near the Mozambique border, with Thonga fish traps
- 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 someone who overlanded much of Africa in his own Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent, 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 closed, roads described by people who had never driven them.
So this guide runs on the park authority's own tariff document rather than a copied operator page, on thirty-year climate normals rather than brochure weather, and on what the camps tell us directly. Every claim carries a date. Where iSimangaliso 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 iSimangaliso Wetland Park
Fifty-nine places to stay, from state campsites on the lake and the beach to St Lucia guesthouses and community-owned lodges on the turtle coast. These four are not the best four; they are the four that mark out the range.
Run by the Authority
Cape Vidal camp
The one state camp where you can game-drive in the morning and snorkel from the beach in the afternoon; a campsite for two cost R340 and a 4-bed log cabin R1,890 on the 2023/24 tariff.
Mid-range in St Lucia
Umlilo Lodge
Thirteen rooms in St Lucia town, with no gate fee to reach them, at R3,045 to R3,190 a room for two with breakfast on the lodge's own 2026/27 rates.
The top end
Thonga Beach Lodge
Twelve thatched rooms in the dune forest at Mabibi, 66% owned by the Mabibi community, from R6,840 per person sharing with all meals and turtle walks from November to February.
Everything you need to plan a visit
Entry fees
R130 per international adult at Cape Vidal and uMkhuze, R71 at Sodwana and Kosi Bay, R74 a car, and no fee for St Lucia town.
See the fees →Lodges & camps
From a R180 False Bay campsite and Cape Vidal's beach camp to St Lucia guesthouses and a community-owned beach lodge at Mabibi.
Browse lodges →Getting there
207 km from Durban's King Shaka airport to St Lucia on the N2, then 34 km to Cape Vidal. Kosi Bay is 240 km further north.
Plan the route →Boats, reefs & turtles
Hippo and crocodile cruises on the estuary, diving at Sodwana's 2 Mile Reef, guided turtle walks and the Kosi Bay fish traps.
See activities →Wildlife
About 1,000 hippos and 1,000 adult crocodiles in the St Lucia system, nesting turtles, humpbacks offshore and more than 520 birds.
What you'll see →Best time to visit
June to November for humpback whales, November to March for turtles, and mid-November for the chance of both on one trip.
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.
- 2026-10-13 First edition of the guide: iSimangaliso's 2024/25 gate fees for every section (valid to 30 November 2025, the last table the Authority has published), the state camps on Ezemvelo's 2023/24 tariff and the 1 March 2026 handover, 59 places to stay in and around the park with their ownership, and a page for every month of the year. See the page