Best of Southern Africa; Cape Town, Kruger, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia & Botswana
Cape Town, Kruger & Mozambique
Start your vacation in Cape Town, Africa’s favourite city. Then search for the Big 5 in a private Kruger reserve before swopping the binoculars for a mask and flippers as you explore the teeming reefs of the Bazaruto Archipelago. Featuring excellent spa facilities throughout, this safari & beach itinerary is perfect as a honeymoon or spoil-me-rotten holiday.
You begin your holiday in Africa’s most-celebrated city of Cape Town where you stay in a tasteful, hotel/apartment in an urban-chic neighbourhood. With access to the city’s best restaurants, boutique stores, art galleries and sidewalk cafés, you could not be better positioned to explore one of the trendiest areas of this truly dynamic city. Two full-day tours shed light on South Africa’s rebirth after apartheid and allow you to discover the natural beauty and historical significance of the Cape Peninsula.
Your next stay over is in Ngala Private Game Reserve on the banks of the crocodile and hippo-filled Timbavati River. Game drives and walking safaris with expert ranger-and-tracker teams bring you into close contact with animals on this Big 5 reserve, where cheetah and wild dog also take up residence.
After a night in White River, your next stop is in Mozambique where all your needs are taken care of by a private butler. The theme here is sea-and-sand relaxation with snorkeling, diving, deep-sea fishing and, of course, no-fuss sunbathing to enjoy.
Namibia & Botswana
Alternatively, you can indulge in dividing your time equally between the stark, other worldly beauty of Namibia and world-class game viewing in private Botswana reserves, this safari adventure is one of the best and most luxurious ways to experience the highlights of Southern Africa.
You can begin this tour in Namibia’s capital where you connect with a flight to the Kulala Wilderness Reserve. Between 4×4 drives in the desert and visits to the towering sand dunes of the nearby Namib Naukluft National Park, enjoy relaxing in your thatch-and-wood suite while soaking up magnificent vistas of the harsh but striking landscape that God supposedly ‘made in anger’.
Your next destination is Torra Conservancy where rare desert-adapted elephant roam alongside a variety of antelope as well as lion and black rhino.
Then it is to the extreme north-west of the country where your stay-over is the remote Camps nestled in a lush belt of riverine forest on the banks of the Kunene River. Enjoy guided hikes and quad bike rides through this unforgiving landscape and encounter an abundance of wildlife which relies on the gushing river for survival.
Transfer to Botswana’s private Linyanti Game Reserve. Expertly guided 4×4 game drives put you in touch with the Big 5 and two cleverly-positioned hides create the most superb photographic opportunities.
Next on your itinerary is Vumbura Plains, which borders Moremi Game Reserve in the north of the Okavango Delta. This lavish safari camp here is raised on wooden platforms to offer splendid views of the lush Delta terrain as well as minimize the lodge’s environmental impact.
Spend the final leg of your Botswana adventure at a camp on the edge of a permanent lagoon in a private concession of the Delta. Ride and walk with the camp’s resident herd of habituated African elephants through the magnificent floodplains of this pristine environment. Aside from elephant walks, you can also get up-close to wildlife on 4×4 game drives, guided nature walks and in a mokoro (traditional dugout canoe) paddling through the glistening Delta waterways.
Malawi
One of Africa’s smallest yet most beautiful countries, Malawi is famous not only for its smiling, friendly people and their slow and easy approach to life but above all for its extraordinary freshwater lake. The third largest in Africa, Lake Malawi has all the sand-between-the-toes essentials you need for a perfect beach holiday such as secluded sandy coves, clear water and shoals of iridescent fish, plus its mirror-like surface means that the lake is perfect for sailing, snorkeling or kayaking.
A beach holiday in a landlocked country? Absolutely! But visitors to Malawi won’t find the high rises, soulless resorts or crowded beaches of more mainstream beach holiday destinations; a Malawi holiday will take you instead to footprint-free stretches of sand and deserted tree-covered islands where you can laze on your sundeck accompanied only by the cry of a fish eagle.
You can happily spend your entire Malawi vacation in and around the lake but away from the beaches and dugout canoes the traveller will discover that the country’s mountains, forests and wild reserves are well worth exploring – Liwonde National Park and the Nyika Plateau are particularly rewarding destinations.