Help me plan our South Africa trip!

[scout8]

We somewhat spontaneously booked flights to South Africa. We will be there for 20 nights late November to mid December. I know that is peak season and not very far away. We need to start getting stuff booked. Hopefully, we aren't too late.

What would you recommend for three weeks? We are in our late 40's, no kids. We like to travel more independently and are pretty budget conscious. We love to walk and hike and my husband is in to photography. 

Also, any recommendations for a safari? We had originally planned on Kreuger, but reading old posts here makes me think it might be super crowded. 

Thanks for any help you can give me! I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the options, but I know I need to get moving. 

ETA: We fly in to Johannesburg and out of Cape Town. 

[Pibs]

My brother and SIL were just there -- I've got their itinerary, but I'll ask them to pull out their highlights. They absolutely raved about their safari experience (baby rhinos, for example).

[wanderingback]

Disclaimer- I never went to Kruger when I lived in S Africa and safaris really aren’t my “thing” although I’ve been to several.

So with that said with all that time I’d probably spend some time in Botswana. The Okavango Delta is so special in my opinion. So I’d do safari in that area. And since you mentioned budget friendly, while I was living in S Africa I was pretty broke and had a great time in Botswana.

So if I were you:
Fly in to Joburg, spend 3-4 days there - apartheid museum and Soweto are must sees
Fly to Botswana, spend 4-5 days there (or if you are dead set on Kruger)
To get to Cape Town you’ll have to fly back through Joburg
Spend 6-7 days in Cape Town
Spend 3 days in a surrounding wine region and then fly home

I’d recommend a rental car in both Joburg and Cape Town.

[dutchgirl678]

I haven't been on a safari, but I went to Cape Town several years ago. Here are some of the highlights from our trip:

- Ferry to Robben Island
- Cape Town - Bo-Kaap, waterfront shops and restaurants
- Climbing Table mountain and taking the cable car down
- Cape of Good Hope, with stop in Simonstown
- Stellenbosch and surrounding wine area
- Hermanus / whales
- Cango caves in Oudtshoorn

[mich1]

We did this a few years ago. Our trip started out as a lark as we ‘won’ a safari in a charity auction. So it wasn’t really a true safari, but it gave us a good taste. It was in Zulu Natal.

We flew Emirates into Johannesburg and were there several days. I’d also add seeing the Vortrekker museum, Cradle of Humankind and we went to the Lion park. We rented a car while there, and drove to the safari lodge. We were there 7 days, then drove to Durban. We were in Durban 3 days, dumped the car and flew to Cape Town. We rented another car there. While we were on safari, we decided to get married while there so go that organized and done. That took a few days. While in Cape Town, our guest house made arrangements for a driver to take us wine tasting a few days. It was very reasonable, about $50/day and as we both came back crocked, a very good decision. We stayed in Camps Bay while there, near some excellent restaurants and the beach. We also did some of the above list.

It was a very good trip. Rental cars are very inexpensive. I think about $100/week. Do NOT leave anything in the car unattended. We were warned this when we picked up the car and saw it in action during a pee/gas stop when a backpack got stolen out of a car when the driver went to use the facilities.

[GilliC]

We went to Kruger a few years ago as part of a 2-week trip that included diving in Mozambique. It definitely wasn’t a place to go if you want to feel like you’re alone with nature, but seeing other people didn’t detract from the experience for me at all. Instead, I thought it was fascinating to be driving around in our tiny little Volkswagen rental car with lions and elephants and giraffes literally right outside the windows! We did a pre-sunset drive with one of the park’s safari trucks (since you can’t be outside the camp gates alone between sunset and sunrise), but honestly it was more fun just tooling around by ourselves. It’s certainly not the “typical” safari experience, but I loved it, and it was extremely budget friendly!

We actually brought tents and camped in the rest camps instead of booking a cabin, so it was super cheap (it’s cheap anyway, but I think my friends were trying to do the absolute cheapest trip possible). And the morning of our early drive there were lions roaring outside the fences when we first woke up. Hearing lions roaring outside our tent is definitely up there in my “coolest travel moments” list!

[gigem]

That is a long trip you can plan something incredible! So I suggest getting in touch with an agency, probably an inter-country (ie not just specialized in South Africa) one because I agree with wandering that you should visit outside of South Africa for some days given how much time you have. We left Southern Africa a bit over a year ago so I can’t quite remember the “right” season for Okavango but an agency will help you sort all that us plus the small intra country flights and things that aren’t super easy to pay for like a major airline. Maybe you don’t need an agency for the whole trip eg once you land in Cape Town but I think it helps see all your options and esp if you have any specifics requests (avoid crowds eg).

As for the Cape Town bit, look into the Garden Route, Tsitsikamma national park is kinda quiet (okay maybe not at holiday time) and beautiful. You can drive it over a few days and then end up in Port Elizabeth and fly back to Cape Town for your flight home.

Alternatively you could do combine South Africa with Namibia, that’ll be a lot of driving around Namibia but depends on what you want to see (for me Namibia coastal area is highly nature vs animal compared to the interior border with Botswana/Okavango).