Leisure IsleAccommodation
Leisure Isle seen from high ground across the Knysna lagoon: a low, flat island of houses among dark trees, fringed by a pale sand beach, with moored yachts on the water beyond and Knysna rising on the hillside behind.

Leisure Isle, Knysna

Leisure Isle Guest Houses

Hosted stays let by the room, with someone on site who knows the island

8 properties listed

Photo by Kent Wang, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Scores are Booking.com's guest rating out of 10, read on 3 September 2026. Only someone who booked through Booking.com can leave one, and recent reviews count for more in the total. All 8 guest houses on this page carry a score, with 1,693 reviews behind them. Treat the thin ones with care: 1 of those scores rests on fewer than five reviews.

Every guest house we list on Leisure Isle

8 properties, with the street each one sits on. We do not publish prices — Booking.com shows current rates and availability when you open a property.

About guest houses here

Guest houses on Leisure Isle

A guest house is the hosted end of the island. You book a room rather than a property, there are other guests in the building, and there is normally someone living on site or nearby. Several of the Leisure Isle guest houses offer breakfast; some have a shared lounge, a pool or a garden that everyone staying uses.

The trade is straightforward. You give up a private kitchen and a whole house, and you get service, local knowledge and a smaller commitment — a guest house is the easiest way to stay on the island for a couple of nights rather than a week, and the easiest place to ask someone where to launch a kayak or which way the wind is doing.

One thing to read carefully: because a guest house is let room by room, any capacity figure on the listing describes a ROOM, not the building. That is a different number from the one on a whole-house listing, and confusing the two is the commonest booking mistake on a mixed-inventory page like this one. Where Booking does not publish a figure at all, we leave it blank rather than guess.

Leisure Isle is a residential island in the Knysna lagoon, joined to the mainland by the Armstrong Road causeway. It is small, low and almost entirely houses: quiet lanes, big gardens and water at the end of most of them. Steenbok Nature Reserve runs along the northern shore — seventeen hectares of coastal thicket and lagoon edge, free to walk and open at all times, run jointly by the Leisure Isle Residents Association and Knysna Municipality within the greater Knysna Protected Environment. The Leisure Isle Boat Club keeps the Peter Gordon small boat harbour on the lagoon side, with around 250 moorings for boats under 6.1 m and a public slipway visitors can use.

If a different sort of place would suit you better, see our introduction to the island.

Common questions

Guest houses on Leisure Isle — FAQ

Is breakfast included at Leisure Isle guest houses?
At several of them, and Booking lists what is served where. It is not a category-wide rule, though, and at some properties breakfast is arranged separately rather than built into the rate. The listing for each guest house sets this out, and it is the reliable answer rather than anything we could generalise here.
What is the difference between a guest house and a holiday home?
A guest house is hosted and let by the room: other guests share the building, there is usually someone on site, and there is normally no private kitchen. A holiday home is a whole property to yourselves with a kitchen and no shared space. They suit quite different trips, and the capacity figure on a listing means different things in each case — a room in one, a building in the other.
Are guest houses better for a short stay?
Generally yes. Whole-property lets on an island like this often work in longer blocks and are set up for a week rather than a night, while a guest house room is straightforward to book for two or three nights. Minimum stays are set per property, so check the listing if your dates are short.
Do guest houses here have parking?
Most island properties have off-street parking of some kind, because they are houses on residential plots — but it is a per-property fact and not something we will state for the category. Booking lists parking under each property's facilities. If you are arriving with a boat trailer, ask directly before booking.
What can I walk to from a guest house on the island?
Steenbok Nature Reserve along the northern shore, which is free, open at all times and covers seventeen hectares of coastal thicket and lagoon shoreline under the greater Knysna Protected Environment. The Leisure Isle Boat Club's small boat harbour and public slipway are on the lagoon side, and the Leisure Isle Country Club on Links Drive has bowls and tennis. The island is small enough to cross on foot.