Last year, over one of our weekly wine and cheese dinners at a friend’s apartment in Shanghai, we hatched a plan for a group safari trip.

Our friend Chris was turning 40, and wanted to blow it out. No lame house party, or late night drinking session would suffice. Over hunks of Comte and thinly shaved slices of prosciutto, not to mention a few rounds of vodka sodas and bottles of red wine, we discussed possible locales for this adventure. Perhaps Thailand. Maybe the Philippines. Or should we all go skiing in Japan? His birthday (and Drew’s for that matter) would coincide with Chinese New Year, which meant everyone would have ample holiday. It was the perfect excuse for an adventure.

In the midst of this discussion, which continued on for weeks, we had a little, minor hiccup. We decided to move to Singapore. Fearing that our indecision would delay plans, we encouraged the group to book whatever they wanted and we’d decide later to join or not.

By the time we settled into our new apartment, it was mid-November. The impending January departure seemed like it wouldn’t work for us. As we unpacked and set up our apartment, we followed along on our WeChat group chat as our friends purchased their tickets to South Africa and began discussing itineraries. We were officially listed as “maybes” but we were not that confident. Frankly, we were a little bummed.

Eventually, there was a sign.

We randomly stumbled over a crazy fare deal on Singapore Airlines, with non-stop flights to Johannesburg for $400 round trip. Without too much thought, we pulled the trigger. It was meant to be. Less than two months later, we met up with our friends Chris, Ingrid, Gaute, and Helene (and one year old Joaquin) at the Johannesburg Airport. We hopped in our rental cars, and headed straight to Kruger National Park, about 5 hours from Johannesburg.

Pro Tip: The drive to Kruger is actually pretty easy, and the highways and roads are all in great condition. The only issue? Chris got stopped twice on the drive for speeding. Of course, instead of a ticket, we simply gave them some money to pay for the “fine” and the officers let us go. Quite a nice side hustle for the highway patrolmen. FYI, in case you get stopped and asked to pay a ZAR2,000 fine ticket, around ZAR200 will suffice.

We like to think we’re seasoned pros on the safari beat, but to be honest, our experience with open air vehicles, sunrise drives and wild animals is limited to about two days in Sri Lanka. We had done very little research, and frankly, didn’t know what to expect at Kruger National Park.

Kruger is synonymous with the Big 5 (which we have decided is actually a marketing ploy to make Type A guests feel accomplished) and is the place for any novice safari-er to get their bearings. There is ample infrastructure in and around the park to accommodate the throngs of visitors. Much to our surprise, there are even gas stations, restaurants, and coffee shops within the park to provide some rest and sustenance to the safari-goers.

After much research (done entirely by our friends), we decided to stay at Protea Hotel Kruger Gate, within sight of the park gates. This decision turned out to be essential to our great experience, because we could be in the park on the hunt for wildlife in a matter of minutes. In the area surrounding Kruger there are a ton of hotel and resort options, but many are an hour (or more!) from the gates. When you spend 5-10 hours driving around Kruger, on the lookout for the next amazing animal sighting, the last thing you will want to do is spend another hour driving back to the hotel once you leave the park.

We were pleased to find beautiful grounds, with multiple pools and a bar that overlooked a small river where hippos, buffalo, and impala liked to chill in the late afternoon heat. It didn’t take long for us to find empty loungers around the pool and order the first of many rounds of beer.

Pro Tip: The resort had signs all over about not feeding the monkeys and baboons that walked and climbed around the property, especially in the late afternoon. Our friends and their baby actually got chased out of the pool area by some rather aggressive monkeys one afternoon. They may be cute, but it’s always smart to be cautious around them.

Two onsite restaurants supplied breakfast and dinner for the many guests and our relatively picky crew was pleasantly surprised with the selection day after day. We especially enjoyed the rotating sausage grill at night (kumu or impala sausage anyone?) and a self-serve ice cream bar surrounded by platters of pastries, cakes, and snacks each evening.

This kind of full service hotel is relatively common in the area, given the location (middle of nowhere) and the few options for offsite dining. Every guest, standardly, is provided both breakfast and dinner and alcohol prices were extremely good value. We purchased wine ahead of time thinking it would be better than shelling out for the onsite stuff, but the prices were actually the same as we paid at a grocery store in Johannesburg. Of course, that didn’t stop us from bringing our own bottles of wine to the pool, because we’re classy.

And the public areas for relaxing really allowed our group to have fun together without being forced back to our rooms. The individual rooms were probably the most basic part of the hotel, totally functional but lacking a lot of flair. Comfortable beds, air conditioning and blackout curtains are really the only requirements when long days are spent outdoors, taking photos of baby zebras.

And the wildlife! The whole point of a visit to Kruger is to spend time in the park, not in a hotel, so why did I just waste 500 words without a mention of hyenas or wild dogs?

For each of the three full days we were at Kruger, we did two visits into the park. Several were guided (an early morning drive, an early morning bushwalk and a full-day private tour), and we drove ourselves around two different afternoons. In our previous safari experience, the guides were invaluable, keeping tabs on the recent animal sightings and driving us to offbeat locales. In Kruger, while we really enjoyed the guided tours, we actually saw just as many animals when we were on our own. Maybe the animals are more densely populated in Kruger than in Yala National Park (Sri Lanka) but we were pleasantly surprised that our self-drive experiences were full of adventure.

Many of the main roads are paved, so the driving is easy. Some of our best sightings were on some of the dirt side roads, which were well maintained. The main rest areas, especially Skukuza, were a hive of activity everyday, especially around lunch. However, the park is so large that once you left the main rest areas, the roads and dirt paths were not teeming with cars. Only a few times with bigger sightings, like lions, did we encounter groups of 5-10 vehicles all grouped together.

Pro Tip: If you do rent a car, just spend the extra to get an SUV, even if there are only two of you. You will appreciate the height to see over the tall grass and bushes that line the roads. And while in the car, keep your wits about you. On our last self-drive, we stopped on a side road to watch some hyenas slowly walking towards some zebras. As we focused our attention on a potential hunting situation, we didn’t notice another hyena that had come out of the bush from behind our car, and walked within 5 feet of our open window. Thankfully, no one was mauled in this South Africa adventure.

When we initially heard that you could self-drive in the park, we assumed it was a typo or a super-controlled tourist driving area that could help ensure safety. But no. Private cars are allowed everywhere, and while we did read a few articles of people who were mauled because they got out of their car to get an up close photo of a lion, those issues are few and far between.

One of the benefits of having a guide is that they keep in touch (at least with friends or guides from the same company) about recent sightings of the Big 5 (lion, rhino, buffalo, leopard and elephant) so you might have a small edge seeing a leopard, for example, if your guide has a friend who has recently seen one. Leopards are notoriously difficult to spot. Lions, on the other hand, aren’t too hard, and we happened upon two female lions without a tip-off from a guide, slowly walking along a paved road, which made us feel like amazing explorers and we had our closest lion encounter of all.

Some animal highlights for us included a lion that took a nap in the middle of the road, a tiny baby elephant who could walk underneath its mama, walking on the road with a pack of hyenas during an escorted bushwalk (the only time you are allowed to walk in the park), all the other babies (zebra, rhino, baboons) that kept us entertained, and any animal that walked in front of our car while we were driving (namely, a huge elephant and several giraffe). I also personally loved the documentary scene with a dead hippo being eaten by two crocodiles, as they twisted their bodies to rip the meat off the hippo. It was amazing to watch, but smelled atrocious.

Kruger National Park isn’t really the best place to visit on a whim. I mean, does anyone actually do this? I hope not, but just in case…it’s a massive tourist destination, so thorough research and planning can really help make the park come to life and also keep you sane. Having a central hotel is key, as is thinking through what kind of tours or drives you want to take. After making the mistake twice, we knew for sure that a 4:30am tour start was unreasonable for our group, and pushed our private tour to 5:30am.

We also tried hard to balance park time with relaxing time, and I think we probably could have done better on this. I tended to get really burnt out by about 4pm every day, yearning for a quick rest and shower, while other friends would have been happy to never leave the park. I’m not sure I’d vote for another full-day tour, which really pushed my limits with the heat and 11 hours essentially in a bumpy car. Turns out, I’m a half-day drive gal. Anyway, all this to say, there are tons of options from which to choose, so choose wisely for you.

Visiting Kruger, and finally stepping foot onto the African continent, was a bucket list dream come true and we’re so lucky that the logistics worked out for us. While we might have started the trip without much in the way of safari experience, we left feeling comfortable and confident in our animal spotting skills. We even bought two pairs of binoculars so you know we’re serious for the next time.