The word ‘Safari’ is not used much by south africans to describe the activity of vieving wild animals but rather known as “game-driving. We say that we are going for a game-drive not we are going on Safari. A Safari better decribes the overall experience espesially to foreigners. 

 Game-drives in Reserves where off-roading is allowed.

In most private reserves tourists are taken on two game-drives per day, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon. Visitors are not allowed to drive in their own vehicles and have to go with guides on company vehicles. Each game drive is more or less 3.5 hours in duration. A guide and a tracker usaully take the guests on drive in reserves where off-roading and tracking on foot is allowed. This is obviously the better option because the animals are not always lying next to the road waiting for the tourists.

Game-Drives in Reserves where off-roading is not allowed

Only one guide is required to drive visitors around. There is no substantial advantage to having trackers in those reserves because the vehicles cannot go to view animals which are not right next to or not visible from the road. Finding animals on foot by trackers therefore have no real benefit because the guests still can’t see the animals. Many of the guides in those reserves don’t have the qualifications to take visitors on foot anyway. 

With Kruger National Park being the biggest at almost two million hectares. The adjacent Limpopo National Park adds a further 926, ooo hectares which can be traversed directly from Kruger National Park as sections of the physical boundary between the two reserves was removed. This adds up to almost three million hectares accessable to the public. To the animals the area is even bigger since they can roam into the neighboring privately owned reserves to the west of Kruger Park which adds a further few hundred thousand hectares.

Visitors can drive around by themselves in their own vehicles without guides, provided it is done between gate opening and closing times. Any type of vehicle can be used including small sedan cars. Driving a larger higher vehicle has little advantage apart from seeing a little more over the grass and viewing over smaller vehicles when there is a “traffic-jam”. In reserves like Kruger the size and diversity allows visitors to simply drive on and look for more animals when having poor visibility on a particular animal. Self-driving is only allowed during daytime hours and not during the dark. Unlike private reserves the duration of game drives is only limited by the gate opening and closing times and guests can literally drive the whole day long if they want to. To experience the bush at night guests can book “night-drives”optionally. Guided walks can also be booked at the larger camps. Off-roading is stricly prohibited within national Parks. Visitors are expected to stay within their vehicles except at designated spots where people are allowed exit their vehicles at their own risk.

More info here