In a nutshell
- The Knysna Elephant Park is a private park between the towns of Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.
- The park is home to 5 elephants. On a visit, you can get up close and feed them.
- We especially recommend a visit if you’re exploring the Garden Route with kids.
- Prefer seeing elephants in the wild? Check out our guide to safaris along the Garden Route.
What you need to know about the Knysna Elephant Park
The Knysna Elephant Park was founded in 1994 and is currently home to 5 elephants and a small herd of zebras.
The elephants come partly from large national parks, such as the Addo Elephant Park and Kruger National Park. There, they were either rejected by their parents or were slated for culling due to overpopulation.
One of the elephants was also born at the Knysna Elephant Park itself.
Admission and Prices
Regular Visit to the Knysna Elephant Park
The Knysna Elephant Park is open daily from 9 AM to 4 PM and can only be visited as part of a guided tour.
The tours last about one hour in total and depart every 30 minutes. We’ve described exactly how the visit works further down in our trip report.
Admission costs 495 rand per person. Children ages 5 to 14 pay 305 rand. Younger children get in free.
You can buy tickets directly on-site — there’s no option to purchase them online in advance.
Before your visit, it’s worth checking the park’s website to confirm current opening hours and prices.
Visit the Knysna Elephant Park website
Alternative: Elephant Experiences
If you’d like even more time with the elephants, you can book the Elephant Experience — a 45-minute walk alongside the elephants with an experienced guide.
The walk runs daily at 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM and costs 1,125 rand per person for anyone aged 5 and up. Younger children join free of charge.
The Elephant Experience must be booked online in advance.
Book the Elephant Experience online
Stay at the Knysna Elephant Park Lodge
Want the full experience? You can actually stay overnight right at the park. The Knysna Elephant Lodge offers modern rooms with views of the elephants — and as a guest, you’re welcome to join the elephant tours as many times as you like. Given that the overnight rate isn’t particularly steep, it’s honestly a pretty great deal.
Check out the Knysna Elephant Park Lodge
Lies auch:
Knysna Elephant Park: Our Trip Report
We visited the Knysna Elephant Park with two young children and arrived early for the second tour of the day. Buying tickets was quick and easy — as everywhere in South Africa, credit cards are no problem.
We also picked up two buckets of food for the elephants — filled with fruits and vegetables for 55 rand each.
Before heading out, we had to sit through a short film about the park in a TV room — about 10 minutes. Honestly, it was a bit dull for the kids. And for us too.
From the main entrance, you ride on a trailer pulled by a tractor out to the elephants. It takes about five minutes, and then you’re suddenly standing right in front of them.
This is where things got a little strange — the elephants lined up in a row behind a small fence and waited to be fed by us.
Once the buckets were empty, we moved on to a photo session. You get to stand right next to the elephants for pictures — which, for the kids, was absolutely magical.
After that, the elephants wandered off and we followed them for a while as our guide shared the backstory of each individual elephant. Then it was back on the tractor — and that was that!
Is the Knysna Elephant Park animal-friendly?
After our visit, we weren’t quite sure what to make of visiting the Knysna Elephant Park. One thing is clear: this place is driven primarily by commercial interests rather than animal welfare.
In South Africa, though, that’s not the exception — it’s the rule. Along the Garden Route alone, there are countless sanctuaries that present themselves as animal rescuers. But when you look more closely, things don’t always look quite so rosy.
The elephants appear to be trained — or at least conditioned — to line up in a row the moment a group of visitors arrives. That’s definitely not natural behavior. Until 2018, the park even offered elephant riding — an absolute no-go that has thankfully since been discontinued. But that fact alone tells you something about who’s been running the show here.
But should you avoid the Knysna Elephant Park for that reason?
As is often the case, the answer here is not simply black and white. Overall, the elephants appeared to be doing well — they have plenty of room to roam and receive adequate food.
They’re probably worse off in almost every European zoo than they are at the Knysna Elephant Park. And if they weren’t here, they most likely wouldn’t be alive at all.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that 65 people work at this park — they have steady jobs there and, in many cases, are supporting entire families.
Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you want to support a project like this. We’re not firmly for or against it — we just wanted to share our honest take.
One more tip: If you’d like to visit a rescue center that truly focuses solely on animal welfare, we can recommend the Panthera Big Cat Sanctuary near Hermanus.
Lust auf a real safari? Then read this article:
Our Verdict on the Knysna Elephant Park
With kids, the Knysna Elephant Park is a fantastic experience. You rarely get this close to elephants anywhere else, and our 4-year-old son was absolutely amazed to feed the enormous animals up close.
Without kids, though, we wouldn’t have made the trip — and wouldn’t recommend it either. For us, nothing came close to watching massive wild elephant herds roaming freely at the Addo Elephant Park.
