10 days in South Africa

[OneKeyAtATime]

Ideally we would like to see Cape Town, Johannesburg and a national park. Is that too much to cram in 10 days? Would it be more realistic to stick to, say, the CT area as there is already so much to do there? It will probably our only chance of going to SA so we don't want to miss out but equally don't want to ruin the holiday by spending our time travelling between spots.
Thank you!

Are we the only ones who did 8 days of game drives?
I thought our DC might get fed up of the early starts and want to miss some, but they didn't. Probably helped by my DD2 being animal mad.

Make sure you all have your own binoculars. You don't want to be sharing.

OP - We definitely benefitted from 2 parks. We saw different wildlife in each, and the experience was different too as Pilansberg had tarmacked roads (and some toilets somewhere) and Madikwe was more earth tracks (and friendly bushes).

The ones I went to the drives were just included I think, or at least we must have booked them at the same time as the accommodation in the reserve.

Eight days would have been too much for me! Three nights would give you six drives if you went out the evening you arrived and also on the morning you left and that would be plenty for me. There wasn’t much else to do in the places I stayed, apart from to relax in huge luxury, which is nice but I get restless after a couple of days!

Our drives came included with the accommodation.

Hi OP, I have been to SA many times, you will love it. Your choice of Cape Town and Kruger is perfect, in fact I am doing the same later this year.

I have never visited Joberg and although I understand it has some interesting attractions I wouldn't include it for a first time trip. Same advice goes for visiting KZN (Kwa Zulu Natal and not Natal as it was referred to previously) Although it has everything, beaches, wildlife mountains and history save it for another time.

Your choice of safari destination is firstly dependent on whether you are travelling with children as a lot of game drives don't allow children under a certain age. Also no-one has mentioned yet malaria, If you want to go to Kruger (the national park or the private reserves bordering it) you need to take Malaria prophylactics.

If you do choose Kruger, you can fly directly into the park (Skukuza) from Cape Town. From here you either pick up your rental car and start game driving as soon as you leave the airport, or if you have decided on a private lodge they will collect you. You asked about game drives in Kruger. To book these in advance, which I suggest, you need to have first of all booked the accommodation, this is because the game drives leave and/or return whilst the gates to the rest camps are closed. To book and use the SANparks website there is a brilliant guide on the South Africa TripAdvisor forum.

As to how long you spend in a park I can't say, this time we are going for 7 nights and staying in 4 different rest camps. If you are not sure if you will take to it maybe 4 nights in 2 different camps, or a combination of a private lodge and a couple of days self driving.

Good luck with your itinerary planning.

You don’t NEED to take malaria tablets in Kruger.

We went and only gave them to my daughter as she has other health complications.

In September you have the whales at Hermanus which isn’t far from Cape Town. It’s perfectly ok re weather in September. These are not to be missed in my view. Look at guest houses rather than faceless hotels. A much better experience. Good value in September too.

4/5 nights would be great for a safari. We have done 8 nights with DC but I would not do this with only 10 days to play with. As a fan of harder to find animals, we choose our camps based on this. If it’s a first time, lions, elephants and buffalo will probably keep you happy! We have done African safaris in Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana and South Africa. Most over 8 days and several locations. However we never do less then 3 nights in each camp. You don’t get to know an area and it’s a sort of tick box safari. Walking safaris are brilliant by the way. Many lodges and camps are not too fussy about age. We stayed at one when DC were 13 and 10 and a hyena walked through. Also had an issue with a stray buffalo in a camp but you don’t want to know about that!

We have always booked lodges with game drives included. You are likely to see more and they know where to look. You don’t. I have never ever been to a reserve with loos! That’s not the wilderness we are looking for and it’s obviously a reclaimed farm. Some game farms won’t let you off the road and I think Kruger is like this. Sabi Sands is not.

Be sure about what type of accommodation you are booking and do check if malaria precautions are needed and other jabs. We use specialist safari companies and I can recommend Expert Africa who have a brilliant overview of lodges and parks. It’s a valuable resource for looking at where the lodges are situated and if they will meet your needs.

As there is only 2 hours time difference and September won’t be hot you really can hit the ground running. You are not in the Australian outback. South Africans use their game parks for R&R and mini holidays. Sun City is an acquired taste but it’s a monumental waste of time when you could be seeing this fantastic country and it’s wildlife.

Even better, the time difference in September will only be one hour, as SA don’t have DST.

We had 3 weeks in SA in January and had the most wonderful time. We flew into CT and spent 4 days doing Boulders Beach, Table Mountain Robbin Island etc before flying to PE and spending 3 days on safari at Lalibela and then 8 days driving back towards CT on the Garden Route before having the final week in Franschhoek. We loved every minute! We are planning on going back next year. It was our second trip having been 14 years ago for our honeymoon doing Rovos rail and safari in Sabi Sands as part of that trip. Thoroughly recommend it as a destination (we went with friends this time who gave the trip 12 out of 10!) We used a SA based travel agent for both our trips and have not been disappointed with the quality of accommodation. Feel free to PM me for more details.