Afrinkong
Nature & LandscapesFynbos and the Garden Route
The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest and richest of the six on earth, and most of it grows nowhere else.
Photo Stefan Maritz / Pexels
SOUTH AFRICA · Tourism
A World in One Country
Table Mountain over Cape Town, Big Five in the Kruger lowveld, the Drakensberg escarpment, two oceans meeting, and eleven official languages.
Southern AfricaRegion
27Tourism experiences
A world in one countryKnown for
01
Featured destinations
Where the country actually takes you.
Nature & Landscapes
The Drakensberg
The Amphitheatre wall runs five kilometres and drops a kilometre, with San rock art in the caves beneath it.
Photo RAIHAAN Kamdar / Pexels
Tugela, Off the Amphitheatre
Nearly a thousand metres in five leaps off the Drakensberg escarpment — among the highest falls on earth.
Blyde River Canyon
The third largest canyon in the world and the greenest, with the Three Rondavels standing in the middle of it.
Two Oceans
Cold Atlantic on one side of the Cape peninsula, warm Indian on the other, forty minutes apart.
Photo Israel Luvhimbi / Pexels
Forests & RainforestTsitsikamma
Old yellowwood forest running down to a rocky coast, with the Storms River mouth cut through the middle.
Photo Piat Van Zyl / Pexels
02
Wildlife & safari
What lives here, and how you see it without disturbing it.
Wildlife
The Big Five, Close
Kruger and the private Sabi Sands reserves beside it, where the leopards have been watched for generations.
Photo MINEIA MARTINS / Pexels
SafariSabi Sands, Off-Road
Private traverse means the vehicle can leave the road, which is why the sightings are what they are.
Photo Marlin Clark / Pexels
Eco TourismMarine and Rhino Work
Whale watching at Hermanus, penguins at Boulders, and rhino monitoring in the reserves that fund it.
Photo Martijn Vonk / Unsplash
03
Culture & heritage
The part of a country you cannot photograph from a vehicle.
Culture
Eleven Languages
Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and eight more, plus the Cape Malay cooking that came with the slave trade.
Photo Ryan Lansdown / Pexels
Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele
Ndebele wall painting, Zulu beadwork with its own grammar, and Xhosa initiation still practised in the Eastern Cape.
Food & CuisineBraai, Bunny Chow, Curry
Fire is a national institution; Durban curry and Cape Malay bobotie came from two very different arrivals.
Festivals & CelebrationsCarnival and AfrikaBurn
The Cape Town Carnival in March, the Kaapse Klopse minstrels in January, and AfrikaBurn out in the Karoo.
Photo Stephan Louis / Pexels
Traditional Arts & CraftsNdebele Beadwork
Beadwork, wire sculpture and telephone-wire baskets, sold everywhere and made properly in very few places.
Robben Island
Twelve kilometres off Cape Town, a political prison for three decades, now guided by the men who were held there.
Photo Magda Ehlers / Pexels
HeritageThe Cradle of Humankind
The Sterkfontein caves have produced more early hominin fossils than any other site on the planet.
04
Cities & everyday life
Where people actually live between the landmarks.
Cape Town and Johannesburg
One built around a mountain and a harbour, the other on a gold reef, and nothing about them is alike.
Photo tebogo losaba / Unsplash
Bo-Kaap and Cape Dutch
Painted Bo-Kaap terraces on the slope of Signal Hill, and gabled Cape Dutch homesteads out in the winelands.
Photo Ndumiso Zimu / Pexels
Soweto, Sunday
Vilakazi Street, the shisa nyama grills, and a township of a million people that runs at its own pace.
Photo Sheila C / Unsplash
Family & CommunityTownship Tourism, Done Right
Guided by residents, spending in the neighbourhood, and honest about what apartheid planning actually built.
Photo Robin Kutesa / Unsplash
05
Adventure & outdoors
For travellers who would rather walk it than watch it.
Adventure
Bloukrans and the Cage
The highest commercial bridge bungee in the world, and great white cage diving out of Gansbaai.
Photo Magda Ehlers / Pexels
Outdoor ExperiencesLion's Head at Dawn
Ninety minutes up a spiral path with chains near the top, for the whole peninsula at sunrise.
Luxury TravelThe Winelands
Franschhoek and Stellenbosch: Cape Dutch estates, serious kitchens, and a wine tram that means nobody drives.
Photo Tanya Paquet / Unsplash
06
Travel inspiration
The frames people come home with.
Photography / Scenic ViewsChapman's Peak Drive
Nine kilometres cut into the cliff between Hout Bay and Noordhoek, and every turnout is a photograph.
Photo Adrien Olichon / Pexels
Hidden GemsThe Wild Coast and Karoo
Hole in the Wall and the Transkei green hills, and the Karoo's enormous silence in the other direction.
Photo Joshua Gaunt / Unsplash
Why Visit This Country
Two Weeks, Four Countries' Worth
Mountain, desert, reef, bush and two of Africa's most interesting cities, on roads you can drive yourself.
Two Weeks, Four Countries' Worth
Mountain, desert, reef, bush and two of Africa's most interesting cities, on roads you can drive yourself.
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