Photo Credit: Kuganha
At South Africa’s new Kuganha retreat, ten private suites combine the adventure of a Big Five safari with a spa experience unlike any other.
At most luxury safari lodges, a visit to the spa means leaving your room. At Kuganha, a new retreat in South Africa’s Cape Tankwa Karoo, the spa comes to you.
Opened in July 2026, Kuganha has ten private tented suites, each measuring 320 square meters (approximately 3,445 square feet). Every suite has its own sauna, steam room, salt halotherapy chamber, flotation pool, cold plunge and massage facilities, along with private decks and outdoor bathing spaces overlooking the Karoo landscape. There is no communal spa, and guests can enjoy treatments without leaving their accommodations.
Less than two and a half hours from Cape Town, Kuganha sits within a 10,000-hectare (nearly 25,000-acre) rewilded Big Five reserve. Here, travelers can spend the morning tracking wildlife and the afternoon in a sauna steps from their bed.
Photo Credit: Kuganha
A Spa Entirely Your Own
What makes Kuganha unusual isn’t simply the number of wellness facilities in each suite. It’s having them entirely to yourself.
Guests begin their stay with an introduction to the private spa, including guidance on using the hot and cold facilities, salt chamber and flotation pool. After that, they can settle into their own rhythm. A morning sauna might be followed by a cold plunge before breakfast, while an afternoon massage can lead straight into an hour of quiet without having to return from a separate spa building.
Therapists come directly to the suites for treatments. The Body Recovery Journey pairs deep-tissue massage with time in the salt halotherapy chamber, while the Skin Hydrating Journey includes exfoliation, a body wrap and steam. The Restoration Journey combines rungu stick massage techniques with a flotation experience. Unlike at many luxury resorts, where spa treatments are charged separately, Kuganha includes unlimited signature treatments and massages in its nightly rate, subject to availability. Guests can choose how much or how little time they want to devote to wellness each day.
Photo Credit: Kuganha
The Inspiration Behind Kuganha
The idea for Kuganha began during a trip to the Maldives, where owners Simone and Searl Derman celebrated Searl's 50th birthday.
What they remembered most wasn't a particular activity or experience, but how effortless the stay felt. Service was attentive without being intrusive, and they could enjoy their time together without constantly making plans or decisions. Searl, who had always enjoyed spa treatments, had also noticed something about the traditional spa experience. The relaxation he felt during a massage often disappeared once he had to get dressed, leave the spa and return to his room. He began wondering what it would be like to have the entire experience within his own space. That idea eventually became Kuganha, where the spa isn't a separate amenity but part of the suite itself.
Photo Credit: Kuganha
A Landscape Given a Second Life
The surrounding reserve has its own story of restoration. Across this stretch of the Cape Tankwa Karoo, work to restore natural habitats and protect wildlife is ongoing, including efforts to support the region’s cheetahs. On private Big Five game drives, guests explore the landscape with guides who share insight into both the animals and the conservation work happening across the reserve.
Beyond the game drives, guests can go birdwatching, enjoy sundowners overlooking the Karoo or spend an evening stargazing beneath the region’s vast night skies.
The setting is central to the experience. With just ten suites spread across such an expansive reserve, there’s a sense of space and privacy that’s hard to find at more conventional resorts. It’s also the thinking behind Kuganha’s guiding philosophy, Reset. Rewild., which links personal well-being to the restoration of the land around it.
Photo Credit: Kuganha
Dining Without a Schedule
Meals are included in the stay and can be enjoyed privately in the suite or at the lodge's restaurant, which overlooks an infinity pool and waterhole with mountain views. Like the spa, dining is designed to fit around each guest’s day. There's no expectation that every day be filled with activities. Guests might head out early for a wildlife drive, return for a leisurely breakfast and spend the afternoon enjoying their private spa. Or they might choose to stay in, read on the deck and watch the light shift across the landscape.
Photo Credit: Kuganha
Choosing to Slow Down
Even the lodge’s name says something about the experience. Kuganha is a Shona word associated with a woman who confidently chooses her own path, traditionally describing a woman who selects the man she wishes to marry and goes to him on her own terms.
For the retreat, the meaning is connected to the idea of making a deliberate choice to step away from everyday demands and spend time doing whatever you like. While many luxury wellness retreats revolve around scheduled treatments and structured programs, Kuganha leaves guests free to experience wellness at their own pace.
Photo Credit: Kuganha