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Road trip across 
SOUTHERN AFRICA

 

Exploring some of the best wilderness areas on the continent, including lots of hiking and diving.

Southern Africa is one of the best road trip destinations on the planet and hence we’ve done three longer road trips throughout the years as well as a couple of visits here and there.

The region has few white sandy beaches, no tropical waters or offshore coral islands. However, it does have huge tracts of pristine wilderness, home to stunning wildlife, mountains, village outposts, tribal people and numerous national parks perhaps found nowhere else on earth.

From Namibia’s vast deserts, semideserts and nomadic tribes over the mountains of Lesotho to South Africa’s wineries and remote Transkei region, we simply love this region which is easy to explore independently.

During our travels here we’ve seen the key highlights, but we’ve also strived to choose backroads, driving for hours through endless plains, huge mountain massifs and spectacular canyons without seeing a soul. For everyone who choose to hire a car, the entire region is their oyster.

 

Location: Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho, during +10 weeks

This journey is kicked off in Namibia where we spend three weeks criss-crossing the country. The route takes us from Windhoek towards the Waterberg Plateau, the highlands and Etosha National Park, which is one of the best wildlife areas in the region. From there we continue across Northern and Southern Damaraland and the remote Kaokoland region focusing on visiting Himba villages, hiking to remote waterfalls and seeing ancient cave drawings.

We then go south along the Skeleton Coast to the Walvis Bay area and onwards to the vast Namib-Naukluft National Park, offering great hikes and unparalleled desert scenery. From there we cross the central corridor down to Lüderitz and the Southern Kalahari to South Africa.

The entire Cape Region, with Table Bay, the Table Mountain national park, its vineyards, penguin colonies, the magnetic Kailitshya township and amazing road trip options such as the whale route to Klienbaai and Gansbaai, is a magnet so we spend two weeks here exploring the region.

From there we drive along the classic Garden Route (well, we’ve done this route twice all the way to Joburg) to e.g. Riversdale, Mossel Bay, George, Wilderness, Knysna Lagoon, Plettenberg Bay and Colchester. This route takes 2,5 weeks focusing on hiking along the Oystecatcher trail, trekking in Storms River and exploring the nature in Tsitsikamma NP – and also doing private game drives e.g. in Amakhala.

From East London, we follow the backroads during another two weeks through the entire Wild Coast and Transkei region, stopping in small villages and key backpacker magnets such as Coffee Bay and Port St. Johns to do beach hiking and free diving with bull sharks along the coast.

In Kwaulu Natal we dive with tiger sharks on the Aliwal Shoal and party in Durban, before we venture north into the Drakenbergs Mountains and the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. We spend a full week in Losotho exploring remote villages such as Maseru, Quiloane, Roma, Malealea, Leribe, Subang and Butha Buthe, and looking for dinosaur footprints.

We end the journey in Joburg exploring the city, Soweto and surrounding sites and smaller villages in the Free State, such as Cradrock and Clarens.

More of this region:

Selected pics during our encounter:

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