South Africa, booked properly.
Which safari you can do in a day from Cape Town. When the Robben Island ferry actually sails. Where the whales come close enough to watch from the path. Every bookable tour in the country, reviewed.
The tours that fill first, Cape Town to the Kruger.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else in the country: the dune quads north of Cape Town, the Franschhoek tram, the whale boats out of Hermanus.
1
Wine Tour: Paarl, Franschhoek & Stellenbosch incl 3 wineries
Cape Winelands day trip from Cape Town: 3 regions, 3 wineries with 15 wines, Paarl sweet pairing, Stellenbosch walk, Mandela prison.
From · $43
Read our review →
2
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour with Optional Cruise
from $23
3
Cape of Good Hope & Penguins Day Tour with Pickup
from $52
4
Zipline Cape Town – From Foot of Table Mountain Reserve
from $49
5
Table Mountain Cable Car, Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $45
6
Cape Point and Boulder’s Penguins Full Day Tour
from $34
7
Cape Point & Boulders Beach Full-Day Tour
from $40
8
Big Five Game Reserve with Lunch
from $236
Table Mountain, the Kruger, and the penguins in between.
The mountain, the peninsula road, the game reserves, the winelands, the island and the whale coast. Most South Africa trips are built around this handful of days, and each one books differently.
Your safari: the Cape, the Kruger, or the Eastern Cape?
All 252 safaris →
Malaria-free reserves two hours from Cape Town, the classic Kruger run out of Nelspruit and Hazyview, and Addo’s elephants an hour from the Port Elizabeth beachfront. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by where you are sleeping.
Big 5 in a day, no malaria pills
The reserves inland of the winelands run morning and afternoon drives and have you back on the Atlantic seaboard for dinner. Lions, elephant, rhino and buffalo are the reliable four; nobody honest promises the leopard.
Kruger, from Nelspruit or Hazyview
Two million hectares of lowveld, and the one park where a full day can turn up all five before lunch. Fly into Nelspruit, or drive in over the Panorama Route and take the escarpment on the way.
Addo elephants, an hour off the coast
Addo holds more than six hundred elephants and the gate is under an hour from Port Elizabeth. Pair it with Schotia and you have the Big 5 on the same coast as the surf breaks.
Chapman’s Peak, Cape Point, penguins: one road, one day.
South of Sea Point the city runs out fast. Hout Bay, the Chapman’s Peak toll gate, ostriches on the flats above the Cape of Good Hope, then the Boulders colony on the False Bay side coming home. It is the day everybody does, and it earns it.
From June, Hermanus does not need a boat.
Southern right whales calve in Walker Bay from midwinter and stay into spring, close enough to the cliff path that the town keeps a crier. Boats out of Hermanus and Gansbaai get closer, and the same slipway sends the cage divers out to Dyer Island.
Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, an hour out of Cape Town.
Two valleys of Cape Dutch gables and oak avenues, both inside an hour of the city. The Franschhoek tram hops between estates on one ticket and no designated driver; Stellenbosch does the same run on a bike, with lunch in the middle of it.
- 1Wine Tour: Paarl, Franschhoek & Stellenbosch incl 3 wineriesfrom $43
- 23 Regions Wine Tour with 3 Estates, 15 Winesfrom $53
- 3Franschhoek Wine Tram Hop-on Hop-offfrom $50
Robben Island, the Apartheid Museum, and Soweto.
Three places carry the history most visitors come to understand. The ferry to Robben Island leaves from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront, and the prison is shown by men who were held in it. The Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg takes half a day on its own. In Soweto the tours are run by people who live there: Vilakazi Street, the Hector Pieterson Memorial, Orlando.
Robben IslandFerry from the V&A, prison tour, three hours door to door.
Apartheid HistoryThe Johannesburg museum, Constitution Hill, District Six.
SowetoVilakazi Street, Orlando, the Hector Pieterson Memorial.
Township ToursLanga, Khayelitsha and Alexandra, guided by residents. What a day out costs in South Africa.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. The range is wider than most countries: a harbour cruise in Durban is seven dollars and a two-day safari with a lodge bed is five hundred.
Harbour cruises, museum entries, dune quads on the Atlantis sand and half-day walks with a local guide.
Half-day city tours, the Franschhoek wine tram, the Soweto walking days and the shared Cape Point run.
Full-day peninsula and winelands tours, whale boats out of Hermanus, cooking classes with the lunch included.
- 1Tandem Paragliding Adventurefrom $109
- 2Full-Day Winelands Tour with Wine Tastings & Foodfrom $121
- 3Boat Based Whale Watching Experiencefrom $93
Shark cage days, helicopter time over the Cape, private game drives and the multi-day Kruger and Garden Route runs.
- 1Big Five Game Reserve with Lunchfrom $236
- 2Pilanesberg Nature Reserve Game Safarifrom $186
- 32-Day Safari at Garden Route Game Lodgefrom $533
Cape Town rains in winter. Go indoors and eat.
The Cape’s wet months are June to August, when the north-wester comes off the Atlantic and the mountain disappears for a day at a time. The answers are under a roof: a cellar in Stellenbosch, a Cape Malay kitchen in Bo-Kaap, the museums along Government Avenue, and a long lunch somewhere with a fire.
Three days you can only have in South Africa.
Penguins on a suburban beach, a cage in the channel off Gansbaai, and Big 5 country inside a morning’s drive of a city of four million.
The Boulders Colony
African penguins waddled onto Boulders Beach in the early 1980s and never left. The colony now sits in a suburb of Simon’s Town, boardwalks over the dune scrub, the naval base up the road and swimmable granite pools next door. Go early: they are loudest and least bothered before the buses arrive, and the species is endangered, so the boardwalk is as close as it should get.
- 1Cape of Good Hope & Penguins Day Tour with Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,362 reviews
- 2Cape Point and Boulder’s Penguins Full Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,118 reviews
- 3Cape Point & Boulders Beach Full-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,032 reviews
The Cage off Kleinbaai
Boats leave the Kleinbaai slipway, two hours east of Cape Town, for the channel between Dyer Island and Geyser Rock, where twenty thousand seals live. No dive qualification is needed — the cage floats at the surface and you drop under on a held breath when the skipper calls it. The swell decides whether anyone sails at all.
- 1From Hermanus or Cape Town: Shark Cage Diving Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 684 reviews
- 2Shark Cage Diving and Viewing with transport from Cape Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 576 reviews
- 3Gansbaai Eco-Friendly Shark Cage Diving Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 326 reviews
Big 5 Before Dinner
Nowhere else lets you take a morning game drive with lion and elephant and be back on a city beach for sunset. The reserves inland of the winelands are malaria-free and stocked, which purists will tell you is not the Kruger. They are right, and it is still a proper drive with proper animals.
- 12-Day Safari at Garden Route Game Lodge★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 928 reviews
- 2Big Five Game Reserve Wildlife Safari from Cape Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 576 reviews
- 3Big Five Safari and Breede River Valley Guided Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 526 reviews
Book these before you land in South Africa.
Most of the country can be arranged from your guesthouse the night before. These four cannot: they run on ferries, timetables and seasons that take no notice of when your flight gets in.
- 01Robben Island Ferry Ticket and Guided Prison TourA handful of sailings a day, and a southeaster cancels them. Tickets go well before the date you want.
- 02Franschhoek Wine Tram Hop-on Hop-offThe tram runs a fixed hop-on timetable and the weekend departures are the first to close.
- 03Boat Based Whale Watching ExperienceSouthern rights are in Walker Bay from roughly June to November. Outside that window the boat is looking at a different ocean.
- 04Kruger National Park Full Day Private safariMulti-day Kruger trips run on lodge beds and vehicle seats, and South African school holidays clear both.
The Garden Route, Cape Town to Port Elizabeth.
Hermanus
Oudtshoorn
Knysna
Plettenberg Bay
Tsitsikamma
Jeffreys BayBy region — where you are sleeping
Cape Town717 tours
Johannesburg194 tours
Kruger National Park116 tours
Durban50 tours
Port Elizabeth48 tours
Stellenbosch36 tours
The Garden Route30 tours- All 21 regions →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Latest South Africa tour reviews.
All recent →
3-Days Ultra Luxury Safari at Kapama River Lodge
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Pretoria and cullinan mine day tour(surface tour)
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Private/Personalized Full Day Wine Tasting Tour Cape Winelands
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Full-Day Tour to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope
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Two day Kruger National Park Safari from Johannesburg
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Kruger National Park Private Full-Day Safari – Private Safari Vehicle & Guide
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Addo Elephant National Park Game Drive Day Tour With Lunch
Read our review →
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl: Full Day Wine Tour
Read our review →
