The Victoria Falls Safari Club is the ultimate in lodge accommodations. Each of their sixteen club rooms and four spectacular suites have private patios and uninterrupted views across the bushveld. It’s all a potent mix of African wilderness and history seamlessly blended with exotic luxury, complete with a private check-in and butler service.
From the lodge’s lobby you walk into a quarry-tiled hallway showcasing an African-styled chandelier made from fine honey-coloured strips of hide. It’s …
If you’re looking for a cheap holiday, Cape Town has probably never topped your travel agenda. This gloriously swanky South African city has won so many travel awards that you naturally assume it’s going to pack a punch in the price department too. It’s been ranked as the top holiday destination for 2014 by the New York Times and the UK’s Guardian, and it’s always in favor with the flush Condé Nast class. It’s also …
Cape Town is South Africa’s holiday city. Few urban centers could match its picturesque setting along the mountainous Cape Peninsula spine, which slips into the Atlantic Ocean. The most striking of its sights is Table Mountain, rearing up from the centre of the city and often draped in white clouds. Standing on the tabletop, beyond the mountainous Twelve Apostles, the drop to the ocean is sheer with Africa’s priciest real estate tacked to the slopes. …
Heading northwest, towards the Mozambique border, we left Wonderboom Airport (near Pretoria) via a chartered Cessna. Ninety minutes later we arrived at Cheetah Plains, a privately owned game reserve located within the 65,000 hectare Sabi Sands reserve, which itself shares a 50km border the Kruger National Park. Sabi Sands is world renowned for Super Seven* viewing, with Cheetah Plains the hot spot for Big Cats. There are no dividing fences, which sees game moving freely …
Nairobi has become one of Africa’s largest and most interesting cities with a mixture of races, tribes and cultures. Just outside the city limits is Nairobi’s National Park – 113 square kilometers of plains, cliffs and forests, while being home to large herds of game, including big cats, living wild within twenty minutes of the city centre.
My short journey from the airport came to a grinding halt when I reached the city limits. …
To most Westerners, Africa is a place of witchdoctors, demons and prehistoric creatures, but those who’ve travelled there know it as an ancient continent steeped in primal cultures yet one that’s wild, raw, in your face and utterly exciting. It’s a land of blistering heat, amazing sunrises and more animals than you ever believed existed. Multiply all this by ten, throw in a UNESCO World Heritage site plus one of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders …
Planning your perfect holiday involves several exciting decisions: will it be seaside or city, on-tap entertainment or splendid isolation, excellent for culture vultures or family friendly?
How well a country treats its people, its animals and its environment rarely even gets a look in.
But in these days of eco-friendly everything, it’s now possible to choose your destination by its human rights record, conservation efforts and social and animal welfare. So if you’re tired of …
Traveling to the interior of Central Africa before the advent of the railway was near impossible. On land the journey between Cape Town and Victoria falls could take the better part of four months, on train though, it was just four and a half days. By 1904 the railhead from Cairo had reached the Zambezi and required a bridge to be built to cross the chasm. The bridge was constructed in fourteen months by the …
My French came back to me with remarkable clarity as I staggered out of the ocean clutching my stinging ankle.
“Je suis blessé,” I wailed, then proved I was injured by tumbling over as my ungainly flippers snagged on the volcanic rocks peppering the beach. Something that felt suspiciously like a crown of thorns had gripped my ankle as I’d waded through the murky water. Now my ankle was punctured by five black splinters and …
The death of Nelson Mandela is focusing world attention on South Africa as never before. His departure at the age of 95 is uniting the country again, just as he pulled the fragmented society together in 1995, when he wore a Springbok’s jersey to the Rugby World Cup, the country’s first major sporting event since the end of Apartheid.
I have always felt privileged to be part of Mandela’s land, a country where one astonishing …
At least 100 elephant are slowly shuffling past our vehicle. They come pouring into the dry riverbed towards us, first appearing over the left bank, then over the right. An elephant traffic jam forms as they filter together, greeting each other, gathering in small social clusters, kicking up dust, then trudging in unison up the dry river. We sit open-mouthed, awed by the immensity of the herd passing within meters of us.
Then one young …
Soon after missionary and doctor David Livingstone described the sight of the Victoria Falls to the outside world they became a tourist destination. Thus, following the routes he described in his journals, hunters, explorers and missionaries descended upon them. By 1898 a small settlement of white pioneers had sprung up on the banks of the Zambezi River and in 1904, when the railway arrived, the development of the two towns either side of the Victoria …
As part of a larger seven-month trip around the world, my boyfriend and I knew we wanted to complete an African safari somewhere along the way. But where? How? I wondered where to start and how to budget for something like this.
Like many travelers, I started at a travel agent, collecting glossy brochures of U.S. based tour companies specializing in safaris. Mesmerized by the photos of zebras and lions, we started making a list …
If you’re looking for cosmopolitan urban culture or beautiful buildings, Port Elizabeth won’t be your first choice for a South African holiday destination. It’s a busy yet relatively crime-free industrial city (important to the South African motor industry) that marks the eastern end of the Garden Route. Although the city has been ravaged by industrialization and thoughtless modernization, one or two buildings do stand out in an otherwise featureless city centre. Thankfully, a couple of …
