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South Africa · 10–16 days

South Africa: Cape Town, the Winelands, the Garden Route and a Kruger safari

An honest guide to the classic first trip — why the Cape and the bush want different months and which weeks suit both, Cape Town and its Peninsula done properly, the Winelands, whether the Garden Route earns the drive, the Kruger against a private reserve, the malaria-free alternatives, a straight word on safety and what it all costs, and a 13-night shape that only needs one internal flight.

South Africa is the rare country that gives you a world-class city, a wine region, a coastline and a Big Five safari on a single trip, with an overnight flight from London and a time difference of an hour or two. Everything works in English, the roads are good, the food and wine are some of the best value on earth, and the scale of the place, from a leopard in a marula tree to a southern right whale breaching below a cliff path, is not something you adjust to quickly.

The mistakes people make are consistent, and they are mostly about timing and distance: booking the Cape in its winter or the bush in its summer because nobody told them the two halves run on opposite calendars; driving the Garden Route in two days as if it were a motorway; giving a safari two nights, which is one game drive each way and a lot of travelling for it; and treating Cape Town as a transit stop when it deserves the best part of a week. Get those four right and this is one of the most rewarding trips there is.

When to go: two countries, two calendars

This is the thing to understand before you look at a single flight. The Western Cape has a Mediterranean climate with a dry summer and a wet winter. The Kruger and the north-east are subtropical, with a wet summer and a dry winter. The Cape is best in its summer; the bush is best in its winter.

• November to March — the Cape's summer. Hot, dry, long evenings on the beach, the Winelands in full leaf and the Kirstenbosch concerts on Sunday evenings. The south-easter known as the Cape Doctor blows hard for days at a time in December and January and can close the Table Mountain cableway, so leave the mountain flexible. Mid-December to mid-January is school holidays and the Cape's peak: prices double or triple and the good places book a year ahead. In the Kruger this is the green season, lush and alive with birds and newborn animals but hot, with afternoon storms and thick bush that hides the game.
• May to September — the bush's winter. Dry, cool mornings, bare trees and low grass, and every animal within walking distance of the remaining water: the best game viewing of the year, and the months the safari lodges fill. In the Cape it rains, the mountain is often in cloud, and it can be cold and grey for days, though the hills turn green, prices fall and the restaurants are easy to get into. Whale season runs along the Cape south coast from about June to November, peaking in August to October, and Namaqualand's wildflowers bloom in August and September.
• 🟢 March to early May, and September to October — the compromise months. If you want both halves on one trip, these are the weeks. The Cape is still warm and settled, autumn colour in the vineyards or the first spring flowers, and the bush is dry enough for excellent sightings. September and October are, for our money, the best weeks of the year for the classic Cape-plus-safari trip: whales still at Hermanus, the bush at its driest, the Cape in spring, and the Kruger not yet in its summer heat.

One thing people forget: the seasons are reversed. A February honeymoon is a summer honeymoon in Cape Town and a hot, green one in the bush; an August trip is a winter one in the Cape and a perfect one on safari. Pack for both.

The shape of the country, and why you fly once

South Africa is big. Cape Town to the Kruger is the better part of two thousand kilometres, and nobody drives it. The classic trip is a drive in the south and a flight to the north: Cape Town, the Winelands and the coast by car, then a two-hour flight to the bush, then home from Johannesburg. Fly open-jaw, into Cape Town and out of Johannesburg, and you never retrace a kilometre.

• Cape Town and the Peninsula: four nights, the anchor of the trip.
• The Winelands, forty-five minutes east: two nights, or day trips from the city.
• The Whale Coast at Hermanus, an hour and three-quarters: a night, or a long day.
• The Garden Route, five hours further east: three or four nights.
• Safari: either the Eastern Cape reserves at the end of the Garden Route, which are malaria-free and need no flight, or the Kruger and its private reserves, a flight away.

Overnight flights from London take about eleven and a half hours and land mid-morning; South Africa is two hours ahead of the UK in the British winter and one hour in summer, so there is effectively no jet lag. That is a bigger deal than it sounds: you arrive, drop your bags and go out to lunch.

Cape Town — four nights

Cape Town sits between a flat-topped mountain and two oceans, and it is one of the handful of cities in the world where the setting alone would justify the trip. It is also a proper city, with serious restaurants, a wine region in its suburbs, a complicated history that it does not hide, and weather that changes the plan. Four nights is right; three is tight; two is a transit stop.

Where to base yourself

• The V&A Waterfront — the redeveloped harbour, with the big hotels, the Robben Island ferry, the aquarium, the Zeitz MOCAA museum and a hundred restaurants. Safe, walkable, convenient and somewhat generic. The right answer if you want to leave the car in the garage.
• Camps Bay and Clifton — the Atlantic beaches below the Twelve Apostles, with the sunsets, the beach villas and the strip of bars. Beautiful, twenty minutes from the centre, and the group and honeymoon favourite. The sea is cold: fourteen degrees in summer is normal.
• Sea Point and Green Point — apartments and small hotels along a seafront promenade, between the Waterfront and the beaches. Good value and genuinely local.
• Gardens, Tamboerskloof and Oranjezicht — the city bowl under the mountain, with the best restaurants, Kloof Street, Lion's Head on the doorstep and the Table Mountain cableway ten minutes away. The choice for people who want to be in the city rather than looking at it.
• Constantia — leafy, old-money and quiet, with the oldest vineyards in the country and Kirstenbosch next door. Lovely, but you need a car for everything.

What's genuinely worth your time

• Table Mountain. The cableway rotates on the way up and takes five minutes; book online, go first thing on the first clear, still morning of your stay, and do not save it for the last day, because wind closes it at short notice and it shuts for maintenance for a fortnight or so each winter. The walk up Platteklip Gorge is two to three hours of steep steps and worth it if you are fit; take the cable car down. The top is a plateau of fynbos with paths in every direction. Allow a couple of hours.
• The Cape Peninsula loop. The best single day in the country. Leave the city south along the Atlantic side, over Chapman's Peak Drive, a toll road cut into the cliff above Hout Bay, through Noordhoek and Scarborough to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, where the old lighthouse looks down on two oceans and the baboons will take your lunch. Come back up the False Bay side to the Boulders Beach penguins at Simon's Town, a late lunch in Kalk Bay, the fishing harbour with the bookshops and the seafood, and home over the mountain. A full day; start early.
• Robben Island. The ferry from the Waterfront and a tour of the prison led by a former political prisoner. It is sobering, essential and books out weeks ahead in season; ferries are cancelled in rough weather, so put it on an early day in case you need to rebook.
• Kirstenbosch. The botanical garden on the eastern slopes of the mountain, with a treetop walkway and a lawn that fills with picnics for the Sunday sunset concerts from November to April. One of the finest gardens anywhere, and a cloudy-day answer.
• Bo-Kaap. The painted houses and cobbled streets of the old Cape Malay quarter above the city centre, with a small museum and the best bobotie and koeksisters in town. Go in the morning, respectfully; people live there.
• Lion's Head at sunrise or on a full-moon evening, an hour's spiral climb with chains and ladders near the top and the whole city laid out below. Go in a group.
• The food. Cape Town is one of the best-value eating cities in the world: the Saturday Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, the Cape Malay curries, the fish in Kalk Bay and Hout Bay, a braai anywhere you are invited to one, and a run of restaurants in the city bowl, the Waterfront and the Winelands where a tasting menu with paired wines costs what a main course does in London. The ones with a reputation book out weeks ahead.
• District Six Museum and the Zeitz MOCAA, Africa's largest contemporary art museum in a converted grain silo, for the two rainy afternoons you should plan for.

Leave the mountain and Robben Island unassigned and take them on the days the weather offers. The Peninsula loop, Kirstenbosch and the city work in any weather short of a gale.

The Winelands — two nights

Forty-five minutes from the city, the Winelands are the easiest wine region in the world to enjoy: three hundred-year-old Cape Dutch farms under a wall of mountains, tasting rooms that charge a few pounds for a flight of six wines, and restaurants on the estates that are among the best in the country. Stay two nights rather than day-tripping, so nobody has to drive home after the fourth tasting.

• Stellenbosch — the university town, with oak-lined streets, Cape Dutch architecture and the densest cluster of estates. The best base for first-timers and groups, and the one with the most going on in the evening.
• Franschhoek — the prettiest village, founded by French Huguenots, at the head of a valley of vines. Smaller, more polished and more expensive, with the famous Wine Tram, a hop-on hop-off tram and bus loop between estates that solves the driving question entirely. The honeymoon and wedding choice.
• Paarl — bigger, hotter and less visited, with some of the best-value wine and a mountain of bare granite above the town.
• Constantia — technically in Cape Town, and worth an afternoon if you cannot spare two nights east: the historic estates are twenty minutes from the Waterfront.

Two farms deserve a mention by name because people plan around them: Babylonstoren, a working farm with a vast formal garden, a farm shop and a restaurant that books out, and the estates on the slopes above Franschhoek with restaurants that have placed on the world lists. Reserve both months ahead. Taste in the morning, eat at lunch, and stop by three; the afternoon wind and the fourth estate are where it goes wrong.

The Whale Coast — a night, or a long day

South-east of the city, the road to Hermanus is a reason in itself. Take Clarence Drive, the R44 from Gordon's Bay, which clings to the cliffs above False Bay for forty kilometres, and stop at Stony Point in Betty's Bay, a penguin colony that gets a fraction of Boulders' visitors. Hermanus is the best land-based whale watching in the world: from June to November southern right whales calve in Walker Bay and you watch them, often a hundred metres away, from a cliff path that runs through the middle of town. A whale crier with a kelp horn announces sightings. In season it is remarkable; out of season it is a pleasant seaside town, and you can skip it.

Beyond Hermanus, De Hoop Nature Reserve has white dunes, fynbos and more whales on an empty coast, and Gansbaai runs the shark-cage trips. An honest note on those: the great whites that made the town famous have largely left Gansbaai's waters in recent years, and most trips now see bronze whaler sharks. Still a good morning, but not the one in the brochure.

The Garden Route — three or four nights, not seven

The Garden Route is the green, temperate coast between Mossel Bay and Storms River, about three hundred kilometres of indigenous forest, lagoons, long beaches and small towns along the N2. It is a lovely drive and an easy one, and it is worth being clear about what it is: gentle rather than spectacular, and not safari country. Three or four nights, with one base, is the right dose. Driving it in two days as a dash to the airport is the worst of all worlds, and a week on it is one too many.

• Knysna — the lagoon town, with the sandstone Heads guarding the mouth, oysters, a boat trip across to the Featherbed reserve and the forest behind. The traditional base and the one with the most restaurants.
• Plettenberg Bay — half an hour on, with the better beaches and the Robberg Nature Reserve, a peninsula walk of two to four hours past a seal colony on cliffs above a turquoise sea that is the best thing on the whole route. Boat trips see dolphins and, in season, whales. Our pick for a base.
• Tsitsikamma — the national park at the eastern end, where the Storms River meets the sea under a suspension bridge, with the first day of the five-day Otter Trail (booked a year ahead) walkable as an out-and-back. The Bloukrans Bridge nearby has one of the world's highest bungee jumps at 216 metres, for anyone who wants that.
• Wilderness — a quieter village between George and Knysna, with a long beach and lakes behind, for people who want to be away from a town.

Route 62 is the inland alternative to the N2 for the first half of the drive: through the Breede valley and the Little Karoo via Montagu, Barrydale and Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital, with the Cango Caves and the Swartberg Pass to Prince Albert as detours. It is hot, dry, empty and beautiful in a completely different way from the coast. The classic answer is to go out one way and back the other, but on a one-way trip to the Eastern Cape, take Route 62 to Oudtshoorn and drop down to the coast at George.

The Garden Route's strongest card is what sits at its eastern end: an hour beyond Storms River is Addo and the malaria-free Eastern Cape reserves, and an airport at Gqeberha, the city formerly known as Port Elizabeth. That turns the whole southern half of the country into one road with a safari at the end, and it is why the route exists on so many itineraries.

Safari: the Kruger, the private reserves, or malaria-free

There are three broad answers, and they are different trips at very different prices. Whichever you choose, three nights is the minimum: two gives you two drives and a lot of travelling; three gives you five or six, and a leopard tends to need the fifth.

The Kruger National Park itself

A national park the size of Wales, with tarred and gravel roads you drive yourself, cheap daily entry, and rest camps run by the parks board with huts, bungalows, campsites and a shop, which you book direct and which cost a fraction of a lodge. The rhythm is the gate times: in at dawn, out of the park or into camp by dusk, with the roads to yourself at first light. You find your own animals, which is its own pleasure, and you can be out for ten hours if you want. The trade is that you stay on the road, you cannot drive at night, and a good sighting on a main road near Skukuza or Lower Sabie can draw a queue of cars. The southern third, between Crocodile Bridge, Skukuza and Satara, has the densest game. For a family or a group watching the budget it is one of the great travel bargains, and it loses nothing in wildlife; the park's guided sunset and night drives from the camps fill the one gap.

The private reserves on its western edge

Sabi Sand, Timbavati, Manyeleti, Thornybush and the other reserves of the Greater Kruger share an unfenced boundary with the park, so the animals are the same, and they offer what the park cannot: a ranger and a tracker in an open vehicle, off-road driving right up to a leopard in a tree, night drives, bush walks, a cap of two or three vehicles at any sighting, and a lodge where everything from the game drives to the gin at sundown is included. Sabi Sand is the most famous and has the most reliable leopards on earth, along with the most expensive lodges in the country. Prices start at several hundred pounds per person per night at the simpler camps and climb to several thousand. For a honeymoon or a milestone trip this is the one people remember, and it is where the money on a South African trip goes.

The malaria-free alternatives

The Kruger and the lowveld are a malaria area, with the risk highest in the wet summer and low but present in the dry winter. If you would rather not take tablets, are pregnant or have young children with you, there are two excellent answers:

• The Eastern Cape — Addo Elephant National Park, with six hundred elephants and a self-drive set-up like a small Kruger, and the private reserves around it: Shamwari, Kwandwe, Kariega, Amakhala and others, all Big Five, all malaria-free, all within two hours of the end of the Garden Route and an hour of Gqeberha's airport. The bush is scrubbier and the game less dense than the lowveld, and the vehicles are closed in winter, but the lodges are superb and the logistics could not be simpler.
• Madikwe, Pilanesberg and the Waterberg — reserves north and west of Johannesburg, from two and a half to four hours by road or a short flight. Madikwe is the standout: a large, malaria-free Big Five reserve on the Botswana border with wild dog, a strict lodge-only policy that keeps numbers low, and some of the best family lodges in the country.

Getting to the bush

• From Cape Town, direct flights run to Skukuza inside the park and to Hoedspruit for the Timbavati and northern Sabi Sand, each about two and a half hours, and to Nelspruit (Kruger Mpumalanga) for the southern reserves. These are the flights that make a Cape-plus-Kruger trip work in ten nights.
• From Johannesburg, the same airports are under an hour, and the drive to the southern gates is five to six hours on good roads.
• From the Garden Route, there is no direct flight north: it is George or Gqeberha to Johannesburg, then on. That is a full travel day, which is the strongest argument for finishing a Garden Route trip in the Eastern Cape reserves instead.
• Luggage. Regional flights to the park airports allow a normal checked bag, but lodge transfers in light aircraft and some charters set a soft-bag limit of around 15 to 20 kilograms. Check before you pack a hard case.

A sensible 13-night shape

Fly into Cape Town and out of Johannesburg. One hire car for the first ten nights, dropped at the Garden Route or Eastern Cape airport; one internal flight. In the compromise months of March to May or September to October, everything below is at or near its best.

• Nights 1–4 · Cape Town. Land mid-morning, a gentle first day at the Waterfront and the Bo-Kaap. Table Mountain on the first clear morning, Kirstenbosch after. The Peninsula loop on a full day. Robben Island, Constantia or Lion's Head on the fourth, and a sunset in Camps Bay.
• Nights 5–6 · Franschhoek or Stellenbosch. Forty-five minutes east. A day on the Wine Tram, a long lunch on an estate, Babylonstoren's garden, and no driving after three.
• Night 7 · Hermanus. Back towards the coast over the Franschhoek Pass and along Clarence Drive, Stony Point on the way, the cliff path in the afternoon. In whale season this is the night people talk about afterwards; out of season, make it a long lunch stop and push on to Swellendam.
• Nights 8–10 · Plettenberg Bay. A long drive, five to six hours, so leave early and break it at Swellendam or Mossel Bay. Then Robberg, Keurbooms, the Knysna Heads and the forest, and the Storms River mouth at Tsitsikamma.
• Nights 11–13 · Safari. Option A, no flight: two to three hours east to Addo or one of the Eastern Cape private reserves, drop the car, three nights of game drives, then fly home from Gqeberha via Johannesburg. Option B, the big one: drop the car at George or Gqeberha, fly to Johannesburg and on to Skukuza or Hoedspruit, and spend three nights in the Sabi Sand or Timbavati before flying home from Johannesburg. Option B is the better safari; it costs a travel day and considerably more money.

To cut it to ten nights: drop the Whale Coast and the Garden Route. Cape Town four, the Winelands two, then fly from Cape Town direct to Skukuza or Hoedspruit for three nights in the Greater Kruger and home from Johannesburg. This is the classic honeymoon shape, and arguably the strongest ten nights in the country.

To stretch it to sixteen: add a night at De Hoop for an empty coast and more whales, a night on Route 62 at Oudtshoorn or Prince Albert, or finish with two nights at Victoria Falls, an hour and three-quarters' flight from Johannesburg, which is the natural capstone to a first southern African trip. Mauritius, four hours from Johannesburg, is the other common honeymoon finish.

What it costs — and where the money goes

South Africa is unusual: it is one of the best-value countries in the world for food, wine, hotels and driving, and one of the most expensive for safari. The rand has been weak against the pound for years, and it shows everywhere a local is paying too.

• Eating and drinking. A good restaurant dinner with wine is a fraction of the equivalent at home; a glass of excellent estate wine costs what a coffee does in London; a wine-tasting flight is a few pounds. This is the place to eat at the restaurants you have read about.
• Hotels and villas. Boutique hotels and guesthouses in Cape Town and the Winelands are very good value outside the Christmas peak. Villas for a group in Camps Bay or Constantia, split eight ways, are cheap per head.
• Driving. Fuel is inexpensive, hire cars are reasonable, and the roads on this route are good. Specify an automatic when you book; manuals are the default and cheaper.
• Safari is the exception. Private lodges are priced in a different world, usually per person per night fully inclusive, from the low hundreds of pounds to several thousand. The Kruger rest camps and the self-drive parks are the opposite: a bungalow and the daily conservation fee cost less than a city hotel room.
• Tipping is expected and matters, because wages are low: 10 to 15 per cent in restaurants; a few rand to the attendant who fills your tank (petrol stations are attended) and to the car guards who watch parked cars; and on safari, a daily amount for the ranger, the tracker and the general staff fund, which the lodge will quietly advise on. Carry small notes.

The currency is the rand (ZAR). Cards and contactless work almost everywhere, including most safari lodges; you need cash for tips, markets and car guards. Draw it from bank ATMs inside shopping centres rather than on the street.

Safety, honestly

South Africa has a high crime rate and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. It is also visited by millions of people a year, overwhelmingly without incident, because the places a visitor uses are managed carefully and the rules that keep you out of trouble are simple and the same ones locals follow.

• Do not walk after dark in the city centre, along empty beachfronts or between neighbourhoods. Use Uber, which is cheap and reliable, or a car your hotel or restaurant calls.
• In the car, keep nothing visible: phones, bags and jackets in the boot before you set off, windows up and doors locked in traffic, and nothing left in a parked car anywhere, ever.
• On the N2 between the airport and the city, do not stop for anyone or anything. If you have a problem, drive slowly to the next petrol station.
• Hike in company on Table Mountain and Lion's Head, on the main paths, in daylight, and tell the hotel your route. Muggings on the quieter trails happen.
• Ask your hotel which streets and which beaches to avoid. They will tell you straight.
• Everywhere else on this route — the Winelands, Hermanus, the Garden Route towns and every safari lodge — is relaxed, and you will stop thinking about it.

Two practicalities that used to dominate advice have eased. Load shedding, the scheduled power cuts, has largely fallen away since 2024, and in any case every hotel and lodge on this route has back-up power. Cape Town's water, which nearly ran dry in 2018, has recovered; the tap water is safe and good.

Honeymoons, weddings and groups

Honeymoons. South Africa may be the best-value luxury honeymoon on earth: a great city, a wine valley, a coast and a Big Five safari in one trip, an overnight flight each way with no jet lag, and prices that let you stay somewhere better than you would at home everywhere except the lodge. The classic shape is the ten-night version above — Cape Town, Franschhoek, a Sabi Sand lodge — with a Mauritius or Victoria Falls finish if the budget allows. Go in March, April, September or October, and spend the lodge money on three nights somewhere exceptional rather than five somewhere ordinary.

Weddings. The Winelands are one of the great destination-wedding regions: estates around Franschhoek and Stellenbosch with the ceremony under the oaks, the dinner in the old cellar and the guests' rooms on the farm, forty minutes from an international airport and a world-class city for the days around it. Summer Saturdays book a year or more ahead. Most couples marry legally at home and hold the ceremony here, which avoids the paperwork; it is possible to marry legally in South Africa with planning. A wedding here reliably turns into a group holiday, so think about where the guests go afterwards.

Groups and milestone trips. This is a country built for a group: villas in Camps Bay and Clifton sleeping ten or twelve with a pool and a view, whole guest farms in the Winelands, and sole-use safari houses with their own vehicle, ranger and chef that sleep eight to twelve and cost, per head, little more than a room in the main lodge. Self-driving in two or three cars works well on the southern loop. The things to decide early are the safari — exclusive-use houses are few and go first — and anything in the Christmas fortnight.

In every case the hard part is not the travel but the number of moving pieces: a mountain that is open or shut by the hour, a ferry that cancels in swell, a whale season with a start and an end, a gate time at the park, a luggage limit on the lodge transfer, a hire car dropped at one airport and a flight from another, a lodge that wants a tip in cash on the last morning, and a dinner in Franschhoek that was booked three months ago. For two people that is a list. For twelve, across three generations and two cars, it is exactly the kind of thing that lives in a dozen chat threads until somebody arrives at the wrong airport.

Good to know

• Entry. UK, Irish, EU, US, Canadian and Australian passport holders get up to ninety days without a visa. Your passport needs at least two blank pages and should be valid for at least thirty days beyond your departure; immigration is strict about both. South Africa has been phasing in an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for visitors, so check whether it applies to your passport before you fly. Anyone travelling with children under eighteen should carry a full birth certificate for each child: the rule has been relaxed for most visitors, but it is still asked for.
• Driving. On the left, as in the UK. A UK or EU photo-card licence in English is accepted on its own. Distances are long and the N2 is largely single-carriageway with overtaking lanes; allow more time than the map says, avoid driving rural roads after dark (unlit, potholes, animals), and expect speed cameras. Traffic lights are called robots. At a four-way stop, first to arrive goes first. Petrol stations are attended; you do not fill your own car.
• Health. Malaria only in the lowveld (see above). No yellow fever certificate is needed unless you arrive from a country where it is present. Sun protection is non-negotiable; the UV is fierce even on a grey day. Tap water is safe in cities and on this whole route. Travel insurance with full medical cover is essential: private healthcare is excellent and expensive.
• Phones and plugs. South Africa uses the large three-round-pin Type M socket, which almost no travel adapter covers, plus the newer Type N, which takes a slim European two-pin. Buy a proper Type M adapter, or a local one on arrival for a couple of pounds. Local SIMs and eSIMs are cheap and worth having for Uber and maps.
• Language. South Africa has twelve official languages, and English is spoken everywhere a visitor goes. In the Cape, Afrikaans is the first language of many; a dankie and a baie lekker go down well.
• Food to seek out: a braai, the national barbecue, with boerewors sausage and sosaties; Cape Malay bobotie and curries in the Bo-Kaap; biltong; snoek and chips on the West Coast; Knysna oysters; a potjie stew at a lodge; koeksisters and melktert for pudding; and the wine — Chenin Blanc, Pinotage, the Cape Blends, and the Méthode Cap Classique sparkling that rivals anything from Champagne at a third of the price.
• School holidays and events. Mid-December to mid-January is the Cape's peak and the one to plan around. Easter and the late-June to mid-July winter break fill the Kruger camps with local families. The Cape Town Cycle Tour in March and the Two Oceans Marathon at Easter close roads around the Peninsula for a day.
• The Kruger gate times change by month with the daylight, roughly 5.30am to 6.30pm in summer and 6am to 5.30pm in winter. Being inside the park after the gate closes is a fine; being outside your rest camp after its gate closes is a bigger one.
• Safari dress. Neutral colours, nothing white, nothing black or dark blue (tsetse flies), and warm layers for the dawn drive: an open vehicle at six on a July morning is cold enough for a hat and gloves, whatever the afternoon does.

Common questions

When is the best time to visit South Africa?

It depends which half of the country you care about more, because the two halves want different months. Cape Town and the Winelands are at their best in the southern summer, November to March: dry, hot and long-lit, with December and January the busiest and most expensive weeks of the year. The Kruger and the other bush reserves are at their best in the dry winter, May to September, when the grass is low, the trees are bare and the animals gather at water. If you want both on one trip, the compromise months are March to early May and September to October: the Cape is still warm and the bush is dry enough for excellent game viewing. Whale season at Hermanus runs from June to November, peaking in August to October. The weeks to avoid without a very good reason are Christmas to New Year, when the Cape triples in price and books out a year ahead.

How many days do you need in South Africa?

Ten nights is the honest minimum for the classic first trip of Cape Town, the Winelands and a safari, and thirteen to sixteen is the comfortable length if you add the Garden Route or a whale-coast stop. Cape Town alone deserves four nights, because Table Mountain and Robben Island both depend on the weather and you want more than one chance at each. A safari needs three nights to be worth the journey, which gives you five or six game drives. The Garden Route is a three- or four-night stretch, not a week. Anything under eight nights means choosing between the Cape and the bush rather than doing both badly.

Is Cape Town safe for tourists?

South Africa has high crime overall, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise, but the areas a visitor actually uses are managed carefully and millions of people visit every year without incident. The sensible rules are the ones locals follow: do not walk around the city centre or empty beachfronts after dark, use Uber or a hotel-booked car rather than walking back from dinner, keep phones and bags out of sight in the car and never leave anything visible when you park, do not stop for anyone on the N2 between the airport and the city, hike Table Mountain and Lion's Head in a group and on the main paths, and ask your hotel which streets to avoid. Safari lodges, the Winelands and the Garden Route towns are very relaxed. Treat it as you would any big city you do not know, and the trip is overwhelmingly likely to be trouble-free.

Should you choose the Kruger National Park or a private reserve?

They are different holidays at very different prices. The Kruger itself is a national park the size of Wales, with cheap entry, modest rest camps you can book yourself, tarred roads you drive in your own hire car, and the freedom to spend a whole day finding your own animals; the trade is that you stay on the road, you are out of the park by dusk, and sightings can draw a queue of cars. The private reserves on its unfenced western edge, Sabi Sand, Timbavati, Manyeleti and the others, give you a ranger and tracker in an open vehicle, off-road driving right up to a leopard, night drives, bush walks, a handful of guests at any sighting, and all meals and most drinks included, for a price that starts at several hundred pounds per person per night and climbs steeply. For a honeymoon or a milestone trip the private reserve is the one people remember. For a family or a group on a budget, a self-drive Kruger stay in a rest camp is one of the great travel bargains and loses nothing in wildlife.

Do you need malaria tablets for South Africa?

Only for parts of it. Cape Town, the Winelands, the Garden Route and the whole of the Western and Eastern Cape are malaria-free, as are the Madikwe, Pilanesberg and Waterberg reserves within reach of Johannesburg. The Kruger National Park and the private reserves around it are a malaria area, with the risk highest in the wet summer from about October to May and low but present in winter, and the usual advice is to take prophylaxis and use repellent. If you are pregnant, travelling with young children or simply would rather not take tablets, the malaria-free reserves give you the Big Five without the medication: the Eastern Cape reserves such as Addo, Shamwari and Kwandwe fit naturally onto the end of a Garden Route drive, and Madikwe sits a few hours from Johannesburg. Take current advice from a travel clinic before you go.

Is the Garden Route worth it?

Yes, if you give it the right length and expect the right thing. The Garden Route is a green, temperate stretch of coast between Mossel Bay and Storms River, about three hundred kilometres of forest, lagoons, long beaches and small towns. It is gentle rather than spectacular, and it is not safari country. Three or four nights, based in Knysna or Plettenberg Bay, with the Robberg peninsula walk, the Storms River mouth at Tsitsikamma, a boat on the lagoon and a lot of good seafood, is a lovely interlude between the Cape and the bush. A week on it is too long, and driving it as a dash from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth in two days is the worst of all worlds. Its strongest card is that it ends an hour from Addo and the malaria-free Eastern Cape reserves, which makes the whole trip a single road with a safari at the end.

Is South Africa good for a honeymoon, a wedding or a group trip?

It is one of the best countries in the world for all three, which is why it is so heavily booked for them. For a honeymoon it combines a great city, wine country, a coast and a Big Five safari in one trip, on an overnight flight with almost no jet lag, and the pound goes a long way everywhere except the top safari lodges. For a wedding, the Winelands estates around Franschhoek and Stellenbosch are among the most photographed venues anywhere, with the ceremony, the dinner and the guests' rooms on one property and the city forty minutes away. For a group, large villas in Camps Bay, Clifton and Constantia, whole guest farms in the Winelands and sole-use safari houses that sleep eight to twelve with their own vehicle and chef make the per-head cost very reasonable. The things to lock in early are the safari lodge, anything over Christmas and New Year, and a wedding venue, which goes a year or more ahead in the summer months.

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