Nkanga Lodge, Johannesburg Better Than An Airport Hotel South Africa

by Judy and Mark

We needed an airport hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa… needed a day or two to get over jet lag. It’s a long flight… or flights… from the US to South Africa any way your itinerary takes you.

And that’s exactly what the company that booked our safari wanted to book for us…

A hotel right at the airport.

But...

A big block of a building. No swimming pool. No view. Nice enough, and with a nice enough restaurant, but well, it was just a big hotel.

Now in spite of the jet lag, we WERE going to spend a couple of days there, and we thought it would be far easier to get over the jet lag if we could get outside… have a little room to walk, sit in the sun, see a little greenery, and get some fresh air.

Nice as it would have been… that big name hotel just didn’t cut it. So we went on the internet and found a great little place that was better than that airport hotel. We found the Nkanga Lodge.

We’ve found great little places like this any number of times… sometimes we just stumble upon them once we’re at our destination. Sometimes it’s a tip from a local. Sometimes it’s a lucky web search like this one was.

An e-mail to the Nkanga Lodge got an immediate and friendly reply. Their motto is “Arrive as a guest, leave as a friend.” That sounded good to us… and now that we’ve stayed with them, I can absolutely vouch that it’s true.

They’re close to the airport and will meet you at the airport and get you back to your next flight, no problem.

Our Kruger Park transfer company picked us up right at the Nkanga Lodge too.

And the staff and the meals were terrific.

There are several acres of gardens and a small lake right on the property so you can watch birds as well as planes. We felt almost like we started our safari from the moment we landed…

One of these days we’ll put up a page about all the fun places we’ve stayed close to airports. For now we just wanted to say thank you to the whole family and staff at the Nkanga Lodge. We DID feel like we left as friends. I’ll take a great, friendly place like this any day!

Happy Travels! Judy and Mark