Cape Town and the Garden Route in 11 days (10 nights)
Cape Town first, then the Winelands, then east along the coast through Hermanus, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, finishing with malaria-free game viewing near Addo. Driving days are short enough to stop where the road is worth it.
The route, stop by stop
1. Cape Town, South Africa · 3 nights
Table Mountain, the peninsula, the city
Cape Town is South Africa's legislative capital and oldest city, on Table Bay below Table Mountain. Table Mountain National Park lies inside the city limits and runs down the Cape Peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. Ferries to Robben Island, a World Heritage Site since 1999, leave from the V&A Waterfront, and Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is enclosed by the city too. The climate is Mediterranean, with cold fronts and rain from June to September and a persistent summer south-easter locals call the Cape Doctor.
2. Winelands, South Africa · 2 nights
Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, tastings
The Winelands are the valleys inland of Cape Town where South African wine took hold: Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek. Stellenbosch is about 50 km east of the city, the country's second-oldest town, dating from 1679, and lined with oaks and Cape Dutch buildings; its wine route, started in 1971, was South Africa's first. Franschhoek is 75 km out, roughly 45 minutes by road, was settled by French Huguenots from 1688, and its Wine Tram runs between estates on a branch line laid in 1904.
3. Hermanus, South Africa · 1 night
Whales in season, a coastal night
Hermanus sits on Walker Bay about 115 km south-east of Cape Town, reached on the N2 and R43 or the coastal R44. Southern right whales come in close and are visible from the cliff paths as early as June, usually leaving by early December; the town has kept a whale crier since 1992 and holds its Whale Festival at the end of September. The Hemel-en-Aarde Valley behind town is planted to vines, and Gansbaai, 40 km on, is the base for cage diving with great white sharks.
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4. Knysna, South Africa · 2 nights
Lagoon, forest walks, the heads
Knysna is a Garden Route town on a warm-water estuary, 60 km east of George and 33 km west of Plettenberg Bay on the N2. The lagoon meets the sea between two quartzite headlands called The Heads, with the Featherbed Nature Reserve on the western one; north of town, temperate forest covers about 20 km of hills before turning to fynbos high in the Outeniqua Mountains. The Oyster Festival runs ten days in late June or early July. Rain falls all year along this coast, so plan for wet days.
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5. Addo, South Africa · 2 nights
Malaria-free Big Five to finish
Addo Elephant National Park lies close to Gqeberha and is South Africa's third-largest national park, behind Kruger and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. More than 600 elephants live here, with roughly 400 Cape buffalo, black rhino, and lion and spotted hyena that were reintroduced; the park also holds the largest surviving population of flightless dung beetle. The main entrance and two loop roads are tarred and the rest gravel, and a second way in leaves the N2 near Colchester. The Eastern Cape falls outside South Africa's malaria areas.
