Travel planning for South Africa, Zambia & Zimbabwe (Africa)

Categories: Travel reports, Africa, South Africa

Travelling to South Africa has always been a great dream of ours. Three weeks of adventure and experiences were ahead of us and we have put together a great route for this time. Here you will find information about our travel planning.

Travel

Our travel plans for South Africa & Zimbabwe

South Africa was a country we didn’t know much about at first. But we definitely wanted to see the cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg, take a ride along the Garden Route, go for a game in Kruger National Park and finally we were looking for a way to make a short detour to the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. For this we had taken 3 weeks vacation and created the following route with a lot of pushing back and forth:

» Cape Town (Sightseeing)5 nights
» Hermanus (Garden Route)1 night
» Mossel Bay (Private Game Reserve)3 nights
» Hazyview (Panorama Route)2 nights
» Kruger National Park (Safari)3 nights
» Thohoyandou (intermediate stop)1 night
» Pretoria & Johannesburg (Sightseeing)1 night
» Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe & Zambia Page)2 nights

We had first searched for a flight combination from “Frankfurt to Cape Town” for the outcoming flight and from “Johannesburg to Frankfurt” for the return flight. But such a fork flight would have been quite expensive. In the end, we decided to fly back and forth from Frankfurt to Johannesburg with Lufthansa and booked the flights to Cape Town and the Victoria Falls separately.

In total, we had 6 flights for this trip, which looked like this:

» Frankfurt > JohannesburgLufthansa – 318 €
» Johannesburg > Cape TownMango Airlines – 62 €
» George > JohannesburgKululu Airlines – 60 €
» Johannesburg > Victoria FallsAir Zimbabwe – 137 €
» Victoria Falls > JohannesburgAir Zimbabwe – 137 €
» Johannesburg > FrankfurtLufthansa – 318 €

For all flights together we paid almost 1,000 € per person.

Our flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town

The flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg was in an A380 from Lufthansa and lasted a good 10.5 hours. We arrived in Johannesburg for just under 2.5 hours of stopovers. After entering the country, which is quick and easy for German citizens with our passport, we had to change to the Domestic Terminal. From here we went with Mongo Airlines to Cape Town, where we landed 2 hours later.

Flight Frankfurt Cape Town, Lufthansa, A380, Travel report

Our flight on the A380 to Cape Town

Our car rental for Cape Town

Since we had never been to South Africa before and have never actually driven in left-hand traffic, the topic of rental cars was also something we had been dealing with a little longer. It was especially important to us not to have a gear shift, but to rent an automatic vehicle in order to be able to concentrate completely on the traffic. Over billiger-mietwagen.de we had booked a rental car in the class VW Polo, which we could pick up directly at the airport in Cape Town near Hertz. For a rental period of 10 days we paid 282 euros with all insurances. When all the bureaucracy was done and we had the keys in our hands, we went to the center of Cape Town.

Car Rental, South Africa, Africa, Travel Report

Our car rental for South Africa

Our cape town hotel

For the first five nights we slept at the Hotel Park Inn by Radisson Cape Town Foreshore. We chose the hotel partly because of its good location. From here you can explore the most important parts of the city on foot. During this time we were able to park our rental car in the guarded hotel car park for a daily fee. We liked the hotel room very much. The daily breakfast was very tasty and was already included in the room rate.

All travelogues from South Africa & Zimbabwe

All travel reports from our trip through South Africa and the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. South Africa Day 01 Travel planning for South Africa, Zambia & Zimbabwe (Africa) (Südafrika)
Day 02 Cape Town – The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (South Africa)
Day 03 Cape Town – The colourful district of Bo-Kaap (South Africa)
Day 04 Cape Town – Table Mountain, Signal Hill & the Noon Gun (South Africa)
Day 05 Cape Town – Hout Bay & Chapman’s Peak Drive (South Africa)
Day 06 Cape of Good Hope – The Southern Tip of Africa (South Africa)
Day 07 Muizenberg – The colorful beach houses & World of Birds (South Africa)
Day 08 Simons Town – The Penguins at Boulders Beach (South Africa)
Day 08 Cape Town – Swimming with sea lions in Hout Bay (South Africa)
Day 09 The Imhoff Farm – Riding on the beach of Noordhoek (South Africa)
Day 09 Betty’s Bay – The Penguin Colony at Stony Point (South Africa)
Day 10 Cape Agulhas & De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa)
Day 11 Garden Route – The Gondwana Game Reserve in Mossel Bay (South Africa)
Day 12 Gondwana Game Reserve – Safari & the Big Five (South Africa)
Day 13 Oudtshoorn – The Cango Wildlife Ranch (South Africa)
Day 14 Panorama Route – God’s Window & Blyde River Canyon (South Africa)
Day 15 Kruger National Park – Safari & Lower Sabie Restcamp (South Africa)
Day 16 Kruger National Park – Safari & Olifants Restcamp (South Africa)
Day 17 Kruger National Park – Safari & Shingwedzi Restcamp (South Africa)
Day 18 Kruger National Park – Safari & Punda Maria Gate (South Africa)
Day 19 Pretoria – Nelson Mandela Statue & Union Buildings (South Africa)
Day 19 Johannesburg – Tourist Attractions & Things to Do (South Africa)
Day 20 Victoria Falls – Arrival in the City of Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)
Day 20 Victoria Falls – The Waterfalls on the Zimbabwe Side (Zimbabwe)
Day 20 Victoria Falls – A boat trip on the Sambesi River (Zimbabwe)
Day 21 Victoria Falls – A helicopter tour over the waterfalls (Zimbabwe)
Day 21 Victoria Falls – The waterfalls on the Zambia side (Zambia)