Table Mountain, the Winelands, and a waterhole at first light.
Which Big Five reserve you can really do in a day out of Cape Town. Whether Hermanus beats Gansbaai once the whales arrive. Reviews of every tour you can book in South Africa.
Boulders, a Big Five reserve, the Franschhoek vines, Lion’s Head at dawn.
Four bookings a first South African fortnight tends to hang off, and what each one costs.
01The peninsula dayCape of Good Hope & Penguins Day Tour with PickupChapman’s Peak, the Cape of Good Hope and the penguin colony at Boulders, on one loop south.
02The first game drivePilanesberg Nature Reserve Game SafariPilanesberg is a two-hour drive from Johannesburg and malaria-free, so a Big Five day needs no tablets and no flight.
03The wine dayWine Tour: Paarl, Franschhoek & Stellenbosch incl 3 wineriesPaarl, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch in one run, with a driver, so nobody has to count glasses.
04The dawn climbLion’s Head Sunrise or Sunset HikeLion’s Head in the dark and the sun coming up over the city bowl. Ninety minutes up, head torch supplied.
Two hours from a city, or three days in the lowveld. Pick your reserve.
Every visitor wants the Big Five and almost nobody has a fortnight to spare. Three ways to get a game drive into a trip, what it costs to board each one, and where in the country it fits.
Cape Town first, then whichever way the road runs.
A city under a flat-topped mountain, a mining town that turned into the country’s engine, a coast road east through forest and lagoons, and the lowveld parks up on the Mozambique border. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Two oceans meet at the bottom of South Africa, and both of them are cold.
Southern right whales calve in Walker Bay from June. Great whites work the seal channel off Gansbaai. Sunset catamarans leave the Waterfront every evening in summer, and hippos share the estuary at St Lucia. Bring the warm layer you were not planning to pack.
Everything in Cape Town is measured from the mountain.
The cableway runs when the wind allows and the queue starts before it opens. Under it: Camps Bay, the Bo-Kaap, the road round Chapman’s Peak and a ferry out to Robben Island. Pick the clear morning for the summit and spend the grey one at sea level.
The peninsula is a single road, and it takes a whole day.
Everything in Cape Town →
South from the city along the Atlantic, over Chapman’s Peak, out to the Cape of Good Hope, then back up the False Bay side past Boulders and Simon’s Town. Doing it yourself means the whole day at the wheel; these three do the driving.
Cableway, or the walk up Platteklip
The rotating car takes five minutes and the queue can take ninety. Platteklip Gorge is a straight, hot, relentless staircase of a path and about two hours. Both close in a strong south-easter, so keep a spare morning.
African penguins on a suburban beach
Two thousand of them nest in the dune scrub behind Simon’s Town, and the boardwalk puts you a metre away. Almost every peninsula day trip stops here, so choose on what else it covers rather than on the penguins.
Robben Island, booked well ahead
The ferry leaves the Waterfront and the tour of the maximum-security prison is led by a former political prisoner. Sailings are capped, sell out days in advance and are called off outright when the swell gets up.
South Africa’s most booked days out.
Every South African tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Wine Tour: Paarl, Franschhoek & Stellenbosch incl 3 wineries
Spend about eight hours crossing the Cape Winelands by comfortable coach, visiting one estate in Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, and Paarl. You get 15 tastings, cheese and sweet pairings, a cellar tour, a Stellenbosch walk, and live commentary from guides such as Louis, Brahm, Horea, or Charles.
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
An hour from Cape Town the mountains close in and the vines start.
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl sit in a ring of granite peaks, half an hour apart, with three and a half centuries of Cape Dutch estates between them. Chenin, pinotage and the cool-climate whites off the Hemel-en-Aarde. Somebody else drives.
Every day in the Winelands →
Kruger is the size of Wales, and the rest of the country is not short of reserves either.
The lowveld parks are a flight and a transfer from Johannesburg and worth the trip north. If you have not got the days, Pilanesberg sits in an old volcanic crater two hours from the city, Addo is malaria-free off the Garden Route, and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is where the white rhino was pulled back from nothing.
- 1Kruger National Park Full Day Private safarifrom $158
- 2Kruger National Park – Private full day Safari trip.from $166
- 3Kruger National Park Full-Day Safarifrom $105
What a day out in South Africa actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The rand goes a long way, and a surprising share of the best days here sit under the cost of dinner at home.
City walks, harbour cruises, township tours, museum entries and the short hops out of Cape Town.
The full-day standards: the peninsula loop, a Winelands run, whale boats out of Hermanus, a Big Five day trip.
Private guides, helicopter flights over the Cape, shark cages at Gansbaai and multi-day safaris up north.
- 1Big Five Game Reserve with Lunchfrom $236
- 2Pilanesberg Nature Reserve Game Safarifrom $186
- 32-Day Safari at Garden Route Game Lodgefrom $533
Three things that only happen in South Africa.
Beaches and vineyards exist everywhere. A shark cage in a cold Atlantic bay, a penguin colony on a commuter beach and a township that produced two Nobel laureates on one street do not.
The Shark Cage
Two hours east of Cape Town, a channel between Dyer Island and Geyser Rock holds a seal colony sixty thousand strong, and the predators that follow it. Boats anchor over the shallows and drop a steel cage against the hull; you go in wearing a wetsuit and hold your breath as they pass. Trips run only in workable swell, so the season and the forecast decide the day, not the calendar.
- 1From Hermanus or Cape Town: Shark Cage Diving Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 684 reviews
- 2Marine Big 5 Boat tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 593 reviews
- 3Shark Cage Diving and Viewing with transport from Cape Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 576 reviews
A Penguin Colony in the Suburbs
A pair of African penguins turned up at Boulders Beach in 1982 and stayed. There are thousands now, nesting in the dune scrub behind the houses of Simon’s Town and crossing the road at their own pace. The boardwalks put you close enough to hear them, and the species is endangered enough that this is one of the few places left to see one at all.
- 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
Vilakazi Street
One street in Orlando West housed both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, which makes it the only road on earth with two Nobel Peace laureates on it. The Hector Pieterson Memorial is a few minutes away, marking where the 1976 schoolchildren’s march was fired on. Guides here mostly grew up in the township and tell it as family history.
- 1Hop-On Hop-Off Bus with Optional Soweto Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 985 reviews
- 2Soweto /Johannesburg and Apartheid Museum Guided Full Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 932 reviews
- 3Johannesburg Hop-On Hop-Off City Tour with Soweto Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 768 reviews
Four South African bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on ferry caps, swell forecasts, migration timing and a cableway that answers to the wind.
- 01Robben Island Ferry Ticket and Guided Prison TourFerry places are capped and the museum sells out days ahead. A rough swell in Table Bay cancels the sailing outright.
- 02Zipline Cape Town – From Foot of Table Mountain ReserveThe cableway shuts in high wind and can stay shut for days at a stretch. Book a clear morning and keep a spare one behind it.
- 03From Hermanus or Cape Town: Shark Cage Diving ExperienceBoats leave Gansbaai only when the swell allows, and the workable weather windows are taken first.
- 04Boat Based Whale Watching ExperienceSouthern right whales are in Walker Bay roughly June to November. Outside those months there is nothing in the water to see.
The Cape Doctor blows for days, and it closes the mountain.
The summer south-easter comes over the saddle at forty knots, shuts the cableway, cancels the boats and strips the beaches. It also has an answer. Everything inland is out of it: the Winelands are in the lee of the mountains, the Bo-Kaap kitchens do not care, and the museums are open regardless.
By place — cities, coast and the parks
By kind of day — game drive, boat, cellar or road
Cape Town, the Winelands, the coast east, then a flight north to the parks.
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