South Africa
Capital City: Pretoria
Currency: South African Rand
Flight Time From London: approx. 12 hours
Time Difference(from GMT): +2 hours
South Africa, with its stunning landscapes, incredible wildlife and rich cultural diversity (there are 11 official languages here) really has so much to offer its visitors, whatever focus they want their journey to have. The Western Cape, around the iconic city of Cape Town is an absolute must-see for any South African adventure. The Garden Route provides a never ending supply of picture posts card “stop off” points and the beaches are some of the best you will find in the world. The historical state of Kwazulu-Natal is definitely worth the time to explore.
The “Beach City” of Durban is an excellent start point and from there, you can head inland to visit the beautiful Drakensberg Mountains, a number of excellent Private Game Reserves and incredible Battlefields of Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana.
The term safari goes hand in hand with South Africa and the Kruger National Park’s reputation proceeds itself in terms of the quality of the experience that you can have here. There are, however, equally spectacular (if for slightly different reasons) safari options in Madikwe, which is near to the Botswana border and these should certainly be considered when planning where you want to spot the “BIG 5”.
The cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria are definitely worth a visit and to spend some time in them will give you a real sense of South Africa’s political past and where it is heading in the future.
