Leopard Hills

We had the pleasure to spend our honeymoon at Leopard Hills, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. The lodge is absolutely beautiful, the rooms are spacious with great views - one day there was an elephant that came close to our terrace to say hi!, the service was impeccable, and the food simply great. Our guide Justin and the tracker Advise were super knowledgeable and genuinely very friendly, which made the safari experience ten times better. We absolutely loved our time at the lodge, and can’t wait to go back there one day.

Truly an incredible and unforgettable experience. Thank you to all the fantastic staff. Stuart and Desire were excellent and made our game drives exciting and entertaining. Rooms, food and all service was world class. Highly recommend. Hopefully not the last visit!Rooms: 5/5

We stayed for 5 days/4 nights at Leopard Hills Private Game Reserve in March 2023. We can’t say enough about the entire experience. It was outstanding! 6* at least! From the moment we were picked up at the landing strip by our guide, Justin, to the moment we drove away, we were treated like royalty and family. We had so many sightings on the way from the landing strip, including a “Journey” of 10 Giraffes! Everyone that we interreacted with made our stay so incredible. Our room was beyond amazing and the view unbelievable! All of the offerings in the mini-bar were tailored to our preferences. We also loved that everything in the lodge was made in South Africa, and such high quality. The food was marvelous and so beautifully served. We especially loved the Boma dinner served outside. And the South Africa wine selection was amazing. We also searched out one of the bottles of SA gin from Six Dogs after we left to bring home with us because it was so good. The game drives with Justin and Ron were spectacular – always something new and interesting to see and there was always something surprising! It was amazing what Ron could spot, even at night! Along with all of the Big 5 and many other animals, we loved seeing the beautiful birds and insects. We even enjoyed watching a dung beetle push his ball of dung up a hill for a good 15 minutes! Loved the Bush Bar at sunset and the Bush Barista in the morning best muffins we’ve ever had. The serenity was lovely. One thing that we loved about the Leopard Hills game drives is that there are only 6 guests in the vehicle. We passed other lodge vehicles that had 10 guests crammed in the same space!! Having only 6 allowed us to shift over to see things on both sides of the vehicle and get amazing pictures! THANK YOU so very much to everyone. I will admit that I was overwhelmed when we were leaving and cried – we loved it so much and were sad to leave. You would not be disappointed if you visited Leopard Hills. We would go back again tomorrow if we could!

We were here for 2 nights after our stay at Timbavati. Fantastic viewing and overall a good stay. Our guide was clearly knowledgeable and was always quite upbeat. The lodge itself has an incredible view of a hill leading down to a river; there was always wildlife to see, even from your room. The staff were perfectly professional and friendly. Food was very delicious but rustic - not fine dining by any means. As said before the viewing was epic; we saw all of the big 5. On that note, the reason I’m taking off 1 star is how the interactions with the animals went. We couldn’t help but notice a vast difference in how the animals were ‘pursued’ by the vehicles in the Sabi Sands vs Timbavati; in the Sands, the cars including our own were nearly right on top of the animals and we often ended up driving into forests of young trees often completely destroying them in order to pursue an animal. As the Sabi Sands is home to many other lodges, as a guest you can sense the aggressive competition for getting a spot at a viewing - not a great vibe. All in all, it made for a less authentic experience to what we had in the Timbavati, where the resident lodges have managed to strike the balance of respecting the nature and giving the guests lots of exciting viewing.

Cannot recommend this place enough! The staff is absolutely wonderful and the whole time it felt like we were one big family. The animal-sightings are incredible and we had such a good time getting to know our group on the vehicle. Thank you for everything!Rooms: 4/5

Leopard Hills provided the top class safari honeymoon experience we yearned for. From the moment we arrived, we were treated like family by Duncan and his team. The game viewing was top notch and all the rangers and spotters have fun personalities and passion for the wildlife in the bush and the guest experience at the lodge. We had Justin/Ron as our ranger and spotter and they were a great team getting us great views of the Big 5 and many other animals and notable birds and plant life in the bush - as well as being great fun as people and providing plenty of laughs and information on the drives and at meals. The food and drink is fantastic and the service at the lodge is beyond friendly - it is again, like visiting family. Everyone goes above and beyond to make sure your time is memorable - and it was. The Lodge also goes to great lengths to get all the little details right - example, everyone knows your name, remembers your drink order, remembers where you are from, etc. The Lodge is luxurious and worthy of the 5 stars, but what really makes Leopard Hills special is the people there that make sure you love every minute of your stay. We certainly did, and we hope to someday go back.

We stayed at leopard hills for four nights as part of our honeymoon. It was our first time on safari and we didn't know much about it. Our experience was that researching a hotel for safari is not like researching a traditional hotel. Stuff like the room and food and service are only of secondary importance, and tbh no safari Lodge will be able to match a traditional five star hotel like four seasons dollar for dollar. The facilities at Leopard hills are good but they are one tier below traditional luxury resorts. This will be the case no matter which Lodge you choose Ulusaba, Sabi Sabi, etc. But they are still very comfortable and you won't be disappointed. We thought by far the more important aspect was the quality of the safari. If you are spending 10k and travelling long haul for a week you want to maximise your chances of seeing interesting animals in the bush. In this respect Leopard Hills has several advantages which we did not know before the trip: 1 the lodge shares its traversable area with neighbouring lodges Ulusaba, Inyati, Dulini and others and the guides from all these lodges share information about the location of animals. This means it's much more likely you'll see interesting animals. Basically the ratio of guides sharing information to traversable area is very favourable. Some lodges do not do this and either have too many trucks in a given area where the game drive feels too crowded or have too little and there is more chance you go a day without seeing many animals. 2 leopard hills specifically is located right in the middle of its traversable area. This is important because it's easy to get to any other place in the area. Some other lodges are located in the corner of the area which means if say a lion is sighted in the opposing far corner, it could be too far to drive to get there in time. 3 Sabi sands in general apparently just has a very high density of animals. Like a lot of lodges in this area, the animals will likely come right by the rooms. 4 Leopard hills ensures only 6 people are sat in each game truck. This means you are guaranteed a "window" seat vs an "aisle" seat. The trucks can either be three rows of 2 people or 3 people. If its 3 people then an unlucky person has to sit in the middle, and it's also just less comfortable. Leopard hills doesn't do this. On top of this, because the lodge only has 8 rooms, its all very social and friendly. My wife and I got to know our guides, Justin and Ron, and the other people in our truck over the four days. The whole place feels like a big family which isn't surprising as it's been run by a family for the last 20+ years. One couple staying at the lodge had been back most years for the past 25 years. They have visited other lodges around the continent but always finish a trip with leopard hills because they know they are guaranteed a good time and good game viewing. The craziest part is we didn't know any of the above prior to our trip. I was sat there comparing things like room sizes or whether the pool was instagrammable. This is fine for a long weekend in Greece but not important for safari. I think the lodge really sells itself short with the website which is why I'm leaving this review. Hope that helps!

We had an amazing experience at this location, and we would like to thank Duncan and his entire team for making our holiday so special. We will be back ASAP! :- Best regards, Marc & EllenRooms: 5/5

we stayed at leopard hills for 2 nights for our first ever safari, and we quickly figured out a week may not even be enough here. from check in until check out, the experience was the BEST EVER. We were greeted by very friendly reception staff and led to the beautiful lodges. The lodges had excellent views of the bush, were clean and absolutely the pinnacle of luxury. Our safari was very personalized. Justin and Ron, our safari guides, were amazing and very friendly, talkative, and had great And the food. Where do we start about the food? The service was excellent. The staff catered to every need. The head chef was great! The outdoor dinner at the boma was excellent, as well as the special dinner on the deck. Breakfast and lunch were also 5 star, delectable meals. I definitely recommend leopard hills for anyone interested in a super exclusive, luxurious safari experience.

Just another incredible and amazing stay. 7 nights in this luxurious African wildlife paradise. In writing a review, it’s hard to know where to start. From the guides and trackers - special mentions for Stu and Mo and Jo and Walter but also wonderful seeing Ronald again and meeting Justin, to the hospitality team - many thanks to Bright, Benedict and Clearance, Tammy too. And Cobus, interesting tale re: the black eye! The housekeeping team - thank you for putting up with our room change… And so very lovely to see Duncan, Louise, Megan and Kiara and also all their canine beauties. I’ve name-checked many of the team but absolutely everyone at the lodge were simply marvellous. And then there’s the game drives: an encounter with rhino on foot; a week old and tiny giraffe; the most amazing sighting of buffalo drinking in a pan, just to mention a tiny portion of what we observed. And, thanks to the knowledge of the team at LH, even after having the fortune to have been on many game drives, we learnt so much new info. Ally and I can’t stress how much we love LH, and we can’t wait to return.