What's Your Favourite SA Camping Memory? Share Your Stories
## The Moments That Keep Us Coming Back
There's something about a South African campsite — the smell of a wood fire, the sound of francolin calling at dawn, a sky so thick with stars you forget your own name — that stays with you long after the tent is packed away. We asked the BushCamp community: what's your all-time favourite camping memory? The response was overwhelming.
Here's a thread to collect those stories. Share yours below — big adventure or quiet moment, it all belongs here.
## To Get Things Started
A few themes that keep coming up in conversations at the fire:
The unexpected kindness of strangers — running out of gas at an unfamiliar campsite, only for a neighbouring family to appear with a spare cylinder and an invitation to join their braai. South Africans have an extraordinary openness in the bush that rarely shows itself in the city.
The wildlife moment nobody planned — a lone elephant bull materialising from the riverine bush at dusk. A leopard caught in the headlights for three breathless seconds. A hippo that decided your campsite was its walking route at 2am.
The hard trip that became the best trip — the one where the recovery took three hours, the rain didn't stop, the kids were miserable, and somehow it's the trip everyone talks about every Christmas.
The perfect morning — just coffee, a camp chair, birdsong, and nothing on the schedule.
## A Few Classic SA Camping Spots People Return to Again and Again
- Augrabies Falls National Park, Northern Cape
- Mkuze Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal
- Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, Eastern Cape
- Boulders Camp, Mapungubwe National Park, Limpopo
- Rooi-Els and Pringle Bay, Western Cape
- Witsand Nature Reserve (the Roaring Sands), Northern Cape
These places keep pulling us back because they strip away everything that isn't essential and remind us what matters.
## Your Turn
What's the memory that surfaces when someone says "your best camping trip"? Who were you with, where were you, and what made it stick? Drop your story in the comments — the more detail the better. The community wants to hear it.
6 Replies
Mkuze, September 2019. My daughter was seven years old. We were sitting at the waterhole hide at dusk, completely alone, when a breeding herd of elephants walked in — about thirty animals. She grabbed my hand and didn't say a word for twenty minutes, just watched. On the drive back to camp she said quietly: 'Dad, I want to do this every year.' That's why we camp. She's eleven now and we've been back three times since.
Mapungubwe, Easter 2022. Full moon, no load shedding obviously because we're off the grid, wine from a box (no shame), fire going nicely. Heard lions calling from somewhere west of the camp. Not a roar exactly — that deep, rhythmic grunting that carries for kilometres. My mate Frikkie went very quiet and then said: 'Ja nee, this is the life.' Best night's sleep I've ever had, weirdly enough.
Witsand near Verneuk Pan in the Northern Cape. You can hear the sand actually roar when the wind moves across the dunes — it's genuinely eerie and magnificent. We camped three nights and on the second morning there was not another human being visible in any direction. Just orange dunes, blue sky, our little fire. I grew up in Cape Town and I didn't know places like that still existed in SA. Changed how I travel.
Best camping memory? Broke a CV joint 40 km from the nearest tar road in the Baviaanskloof. Spent an unexpected night in a beautiful narrow kloof listening to the river, stars visible between the cliffs. The 'disaster' became the highlight. The two guys behind us stopped and helped fix the CV the next morning with a spare we luckily had. We all ended up camping together for another night just because it was too good to leave. Those unplanned nights are always the ones you remember.
Augrabies Falls in August. Hiked down to the viewpoint at the main falls at sunrise when there was nobody else there. The Orange River was running strong after good summer rains and the noise was something else — you feel it in your chest. My old man is 72 and this was his first time seeing Augrabies. The look on his face is what I think about whenever someone asks why I bother with the long drives.
deon_kotze wrote:
Augrabies Falls in August. Hiked down to the viewpoint at the main falls at sunrise when there was nobody else there. The Orange River was running strong after good summer rains and the noise was something else — you feel it in your chest. My old man is 72 and this was his first time seeing Augrabies. The look on his face is what I think about whenever someone asks why I bother with the long drives.
Share some pics!