South Africa journeys from bush to vineyard

A tailor-made South Africa round trip starts with us at €4,000 per person excluding international flights, based on a minimum of 12 days. Our Garden Route self-drive starts at €4,200 from 14 days, and the safari-and-Indian-Ocean combination at €4,500 from 11 days. The biggest factors in the price are the lodge category, the number of safari nights in private reserves, and the season. Your personal proposal itemises every service included.

With a domestic flight. Around 1,600 kilometres separate Cape Town from the Kruger region – driving it costs several days of your trip, while the direct flight to Skukuza takes about two and a half hours. Our "Cape Town, Wine and Kruger National Park" round trip does exactly this and needs at least 12 days for it. If you would rather avoid the domestic flight, choose an Eastern Cape reserve instead of the north-east: these sit at the end of the Garden Route and attach to a self-drive itinerary without an extra flight.

We recommend at least 12 days. The stretch between Cape Town and Gqeberha alone runs to around 770 kilometres on the N2, of which the classic Garden Route between Mossel Bay and Gqeberha accounts for 369 – and adding the Kruger region means adding a domestic flight. From 14 days onwards the journey relaxes: our self-drive itinerary is built for that length. Only from there is there room for detours such as the R62 wine route, or for several nights in one place rather than moving on every day.

TODO: recommended booking lead time in months for high season, justified by the size of the properties (Namibia comparison: 9–12 months, evidenced with concrete room or suite counts). South Africa has two high seasons: the dry months from May to September for safari in the north-east, and the summer months from November to March for Cape Town and the coast. If you are combining both, it pays to plan around one of those peaks – in the weeks either side, the choice of properties is often considerably wider.

Yes – for many of our guests South Africa is their first journey to Africa, and with good reason: dependable infrastructure, a dense network of domestic flights, English as the working language, and a time difference of one hour at most. During European summer time there is none at all, so you arrive without jet lag. An honest answer includes two caveats: a few sensible precautions apply in the larger cities, which we go through with you before departure, and Kruger National Park lies in a malaria area. If you would rather avoid both, travel via the Cape region and a malaria-free reserve in the Eastern Cape.

Yes, particularly well. Few safari countries travel this comfortably with children: no meaningful time difference, short domestic flights instead of long driving days, and malaria-free reserves such as Madikwe, Kariega and Kwandwe where the Big Five can be seen without prophylaxis. For family journeys we plan shorter legs and choose properties with family rooms and age-appropriate activities – our "Safari and Beach Adventure" itinerary combines exactly that with beach days on the Indian Ocean. Tell us how old your children are and we will build the route and the accommodation around that.

The Kruger region offers the higher density of wildlife, the Eastern Cape the simpler logistics. Private reserves at Kruger such as Sabi Sand border the national park directly and count among the most reliable places in the world for leopard sightings – but they lie in a malaria area and require a domestic flight from Cape Town. The Eastern Cape reserves are malaria-free and sit at the end of the Garden Route: Kwandwe covers 22,000 hectares, Kariega 10,000. The Big Five live here too; the areas are smaller, but getting there is part of the route rather than an extra flight.