Kruger National Park is enormous — bigger than some countries — and picking the wrong entrance gate can cost you hours of driving before you even reach your camp. SANParks operates nine gates, and the smart move is to match the gate to where you're sleeping, not just to whichever one is nearest the highway.

The park's own estimates make the point vividly. Skukuza, Kruger's main camp, is only about 12km from Paul Kruger Gate — a 20-minute run. Come in via Phabeni instead and you're looking at roughly 39km and nearly two hours. Satara tells a similar story: it's just 48km from Orpen Gate (about 1 hour 15 minutes), but from Phalaborwa Gate the same camp is around 120km and can take up to five hours on the park's speed-restricted roads.

A rough cheat sheet for the popular camps: Paul Kruger Gate for Skukuza, Numbi for Pretoriuskop, Malelane for Berg-en-Dal, Crocodile Bridge Gate for Crocodile Bridge camp and Lower Sabie, Orpen for Satara and Talamati, Phalaborwa Gate for Letaba and Olifants, and Punda Maria Gate for Punda Maria camp and Shingwedzi. Most southern and central pairings get you there in 20 minutes to an hour and a quarter.

One thing to remember: SANParks' times are minimums on the shortest route at legal speeds. They don't factor in elephant jams, slow convoys around a leopard sighting or a stop at a rest camp — and inside Kruger, those happen. Pad your arrival day accordingly, especially if you're travelling with kids or arriving late.

It helps to think of the gates by region. The south — Malelane, Crocodile Bridge, Numbi, Paul Kruger and Phabeni — serves the busiest camps like Skukuza, Lower Sabie and Berg-en-Dal. Orpen is the key to the central grasslands around Satara. Up north, Phalaborwa gets you to Letaba, Mopani and Olifants, while Punda Maria covers the remote far north.

Finally, don't assume the closest gate to your starting point is the right one. Driving from Johannesburg, distances run from about 411km to Numbi up to roughly 600km to Pafuri, so weigh the road trip against your in-park destination. Flying in? Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA) suits the southern gates, Hoedspruit's Eastgate Airport works for the central and northern sections, and Phalaborwa even has a small gateway airport just 3km from its gate.

Get this right and you trade a day of driving for a day of game viewing — which is, after all, the whole point.