South Africa with 2 toddlers

[ohdearwhatamess]

We are considering going to South Africa next winter with dcs who would then be about 22 months old, and 3.5 years old. Been invited to a wedding (in Orange Free State, I think).

Would welcome any thoughts or advice from anyone who has done similar (positive or negative), about flights, accommodation, car hire etc.

We wouldn't want to stay in a hotel (unless it was very child friendly). Don't know if self-catering and car hire is a viable option instead.

there are lots of flights to choose from, with the majority flying over night, and with hardly any time difference, it really helps not to disturb little ones routines etc.

we used bushbabytravel, they have a great website full of information and other sites to help you plan. They set up the company as a child friendly travel company. They got really good flight prices for us too.

Winter is a great time of year to go, we travelled late October. Would love to go back.

We went to the cape with ds1 when he was only 5 months and had a fab time.
Check out the distance from wedding to nearest airport - may well be a very long journey and IIRC you prob won't be able to fly direct.

Self-catering and car hire is def the best option. Be careful of hiring the car seats though - road safety is not a strong point in SA! We had a bit of a nightmare getting something even vaguely appropriate!
Agree about the overnight flights.

OFS (or whatever it is now called) wouldn't be top of my list, but there are some very beautiful places - faboulous scenery, mountains etc. Where is the wedding?

Do you mean our winter (their summer)? Could get pretty hot in that part of the country. Check some temp charts.

Honestly - please do not plan to spend too much of your holiday in the Free State. Really. I beg you! .

Go to the wedding, have a good time, then move on to somewhere else!

There are squillions of self catering places in all the major cities in SA so no problem to do that and it tends to be better. Car hire is all the same big companies you'd use in Europe or the US so that's no problem either.

Go, you'll have a great time. I'm going to track down my obsessive helpful Cape Town advice thread!

Cape Town Link