Stories Gathered Through Time

There is a particular pleasure in returning to a place you know. The road bends where you remember it. A season arrives, and you know what it will change. Familiar faces have new stories to tell. At Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve, almost five decades have deepened that familiarity into something far more valuable. We know this wilderness not only through what we see today, but through what came before. Rangers and trackers carry knowledge gathered over years in the field. Relationships with neighbouring communities reach back through generations. Together, these things create a connection to place that cannot be manufactured or hurried. 

This relationship has made us think about what it means as the Sabi Sabi Collection grows. With Sandringham Private Game Reserve and The Claremont Boutique Hotel now part of the Collection, we find ourselves considering the idea from different perspectives. One takes us into a wilderness whose next chapter is only beginning, with the other into a Cape Town address with almost a century behind its doors. 

What they share is a belief that the most rewarding journeys take us beyond the destination. 

The Luxury of Knowing

Some measures of a good safari are obvious. A leopard strolling a gravel road, stopping occasionally to sniff the air. Elephants with calves appearing at the water. Lions found before breakfast. Spend enough time in the bush, and the real reward eventually shifts.

Some measures of a good safari are obvious. A leopard strolling a gravel road, stopping occasionally to sniff the air. Elephants with calves appearing at the water. Lions found before breakfast. Spend enough time in the bush, and the real reward eventually shifts.

This is where Sabi Sabi’s years matter. Knowledge here has accumulated slowly, enriched by hundreds of hours spent in the bush. The same continuity runs through relationships beyond the reserve, where neighbouring communities have long been part of our story. 

We have had the great privilege of time here. Time to observe, learn and know this place well.  

Learning Anew

At Sandringham Private Game Reserve, there is a different energy. Here, we do not have years of stories to draw upon. We are watching many of them begin.

Wildlife is returning to areas where it had been absent, territories are shifting, and rhythms are still being learnt. There are animals whose movements we are only starting to understand and parts of the reserve that continue to reveal something new. Much of that discovery happens around water. Four rivers converge at Sandringham and their presence changes both the wildlife and the way it can be watched. And often, the best way to experience it is simply to stay still. From the decks overlooking a tributary of the Timbavati River or from a bird hide, there is time to simply watch.

At other times, getting to know Sandringham means moving through it differently. Game drives remain part of Sandringham, but they are not the only way into the wilderness. Walking, birding and interpretation broaden the experience and bring attention to the small things that explain how a place works, rather than only what lives there.

Another Side of Cape Town

The story behind the destination changes again at The Claremont Boutique Hotel. The building itself carries a piece of the city’s architectural history, while beyond its doors lies a part of Cape Town that is easily overlooked in the rush towards its best-known attractions. And those attractions deserve their reputation. There will always be a good reason to see Table Mountain, drive Chapman’s Peak or spend an afternoon on the Atlantic seaboard. But some of the best discoveries are considerably smaller. An ice cream shop in the Peninsula that a local insists is worth the detour. A penguin appearing alongside your kayak. A tasting at one of South Africa’s oldest wine farms, where what is poured into the glass comes with several centuries of Cape history.

The Claremont offers a starting point for exploration. Not a checklist of Cape Town’s greatest hits, but an invitation to look a little further and find the places, people and stories that give the city its character. 

What Remains

This is what we hope remains after a journey: the feeling that you know something you didn’t before. Travel should make us curious about where we are, show us things we might otherwise have missed and leave us with stories that could only belong there.

The places that stay with us are seldom those we pass through. They are the ones we leave knowing a little better. 

Warm regards,

The Sabi Sabi Collection Team