First Trip to South Africa

Planning a trip to South Africa in October. Unclear if we will be on the Western or Eastern Cape at this time. Looking for recommendations for a 1 day winery tour, where to see penguins, Flying to Kruger to spend a few days or just do a closer place? Also, what would be the one thing that we should not miss while there? Looking at a 14-17 day trip. Thanks!

Hi. I don't know most of the answers to your questions, because we just flew into South Africa (the country). We spent all our time in Zambia (for Victoria Falls) and Botswana, for game drives. If you want to go to Kruger, I suggest you do some reading about how crowded it gets there. To ME, I would hate it there--20 vehicles surrounding one poor lion. Botswana is a plane trip from Joburg, but if you want to have a wonderful wildlife photo experience, it is hard to beat. Our trip to South Africa was all the way back in 2005 (??), but it remains one of the best experiences of our lives. Enjoy!

We were in South Africa in Sept 2022. Great time. We spent one week in safari at Zulu Nyala which is eastern part of SA. Zulu Nyala is a smaller reserve (4500 acres) as compared to larger ones at 45000 acres. We did visit the larger reserves several days to see lions. We saw all of the animals except cheetah and leopards. Great experience. We then spend a week in Cape Town. Stayed at 12 Apostles Resort. Couldnt ask for better service and accommadations. We did one day trip to Cape of Good Hope to see the penguins. Hired a driver to take us on tour of wineries in Stellenbach, http://www.tsibatsiba.co.za/ She was fantistic and took us to some great wineries. We also did the train/tram tour of wineries in Franschook. Some restaurants not to miss: Belly of the Beast in Cape Town, Fat Butcher in Stellenbach, and Beau Constantia in Constantia. Reservations are definitely required. Enjoy the trip

Sun City is a cool place. That is like a casino oasis and a lot of fun.

We too are beginning to plan for South Africa. Frankly I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. If anyone has recommendations on safari companies that they have used, we would appreciate the info.

I don't blame you at all. A TA for South Africa I think is a must. I don't know for sure if they are still in business, but we used Bert at Fish Eagle Safaris. He was wonderful!

Yes, it can be overwhelming. Fortunately the safari part of our trip was planned. We had won it at a charity auction and Zula Nyala was better than expected. They were great about communications and setting up transportation from airport in Durban and back. They set up daily excusions on their property plus you have the option to go outside of the reserve to visit larger reservse to see lions.

As for Capetown, we did our own planning. Using the internet, TripAdvisor and reading other blogs, we were able to put together a great week of adventure, food and wine. We booked day trips with TripAdvisor and it all worked out well. Staying in Stellenbach also make it easier to visit the wineries and experience the area.

It takes some planning but it can be done.

Thank you to everyone for your replies. We’ll be glad to share our experiences once we figure this out.

We spent 4 nights back in November at Amakhala Game Reserve out near Port Elizabeth. There are about 10 lodges in the Reserve ranging in price. They look expensive (or they did to me!) but everything is included, 2 game drives each full day with one on arrival day. We had a great, really knowledgeable, guide called James who has been there for years. We stayed at Bush Lodge and it was excellent.

Thank you, Mike

Driving the Garden Route on the South coast is great, you will see Penguins in Simons Town, Whales in Hermanus. Off the route just a bit is the Cango Wildlife Ranch, we have an adopted Cheetah that lives there and possible to play with.
Stellenboche is the wine country, not far from CapeTown many winerys there.
In Cape town there are serveral travel companies to book game lodges with. European and American prices are higher. They know which game lodge has availability.
Kruger is a nice drive, you don't need to even look for animals, you just stop where all the other cars are, not the way to see the animals.