There is nothing more South African than packing the tent for a weekend in the bush, so I built a free tool to help you find a campsite that is genuinely close enough for just two nights.
The idea is simple. Tell it whether you are leaving from Joburg or Pretoria, because the two cities are an hour apart and the same campsite is a different drive from each, then cap how far you want to drive at one, two or three hours. From there you can filter by the kind of weekend you want, a Big 5 reserve, a mountain with rock pools, a river for rafting, a dam for watersports, or a hot springs family resort, plus whether you need a power point or somewhere that suits young kids.
A few things I tried to get right.
Every site is one I checked, so the list is honest. I confirmed that you can actually pitch a tent there rather than only book a chalet, checked the drive time from both cities, and made sure each booking link goes to the official site. The glamping only places were left off.
Each listing carries a plain note on what the place is really like and who it suits, the detail that generic campsite lists skip. So you will see that Mountain Sanctuary Park is deliberately unplugged with no electricity, that the Hennops hiking trail is not ideal for under 12s, and that the big resorts book out months ahead for long weekends.
The ten sites at launch are Hennops near Centurion, Bushbabies and Thorn Tree in the Dinokeng Big 5 reserve, Mountain Sanctuary Park and ATKV Buffelspoort in the Magaliesberg, Otters Haunt on the Vaal at Parys, TangleWood at Boskop Dam, Warmbaths at Bela-Bela, Loskopdam, and Marakele National Park in the Waterberg for a long weekend.
Try it here: Weekend Camping Near Johannesburg & Pretoria
If you camp around Gauteng I would love to know whether the drive times and notes ring true, and if I have left off a spot you rate, tell me and I will look at adding it. Buffelspoort, the Vaal Dam side and Kgaswane are already on my maybe list.