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Summary

We spent a little over two weeks driving from Johannesburg to Cape Town, including Kruger National Park and the coastal Garden Route, before staying in the Cape Peninsula and Stellenbosch. We stayed primarily in chalets within national park rest camps and prioritized animals, hikes, and good seafood on the road, but provide some recommendations for other activities and points of interest based on our research 👋

This is not a definitive guide, but we hope it helps with planning your own trip!

Panorama-Kruger Route (31 hours, 2,394km / 1,487mi )

Garden Route & Cape Town (15 hours, 1,182km / 734mi)

<aside> 💡 Planning Resources

These are some of the documents we used for planning our overall route and individual stops day-to-day.

• [Google Maps] Main Waypoints
• [Google Maps] Potential Points of Interest
• [Google Sheets] Every Place We Went </aside>

<aside> 💁‍♂️ General Notes

• English is commonly spoken and Ubers are the easiest and safest way to get around if you don’t have a car.
• Tipping is common. There will often be official and unofficial car attendants and security in parking lots, along with gas attendants who fill up gas and clean your car, so it’s helpful to carry cash/coins even though card terminals are common everywhere.
• WhatsApp is sometimes used by businesses when making reservations, can be helpful to check if you don’t have international calling.
• If you’re visiting many national parks and nature reserves, consider getting a wild card. </aside>

<aside> 👜 Packing Notes

If you’re going to Kruger, I highly recommend packing a nice pair of binoculars and a camera with a zoom lens. You can always order and then return after vacation 😇

We bought the Nikon PROSTAFF P3 8x42 binocs and I grabbed a 55-210mm zoom lens for my camera.

Kruger NP is a malarial zone. Make sure you get a travel recommendation from your doctor / health insurance and receive anti-malarial pills. In my case, One Medical provides a travel questionnaire that you can fill out on the desktop site — I was able to get a prescription filled at my local Walgreens on the same day, no cost except for the pills ($15-30) compared to a more costly in-person travel appointment.

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<aside> 🍽️ Food Checklist!

Here are a few local things you’ll probably eat or want to try:

• Rooibos tea (+ rusks!) — Only grows in Africa, so might as well get it directly 🙂
• Biltong — Reminiscent of jerky, this is meat that is cured in vinegar and air-dried slowly before being sliced. This makes it more meaty & acidic and less smoky, and also gives the meat cut more prominence in the result based on fat content. In addition, biltong varies in texture from super-dry sticks to soft and tender slices.
• Pap — Kinda like polenta? Usually served with boerewors (sausage but higher percentage of meat and often w game meat), and sheba (tomato relish) or chakalaka (spicy tomato & bean relish)
  • Pap Fritters — We found sweetcorn pap fritters in a few places, also with chakalaka and boerewors. Crispy polenta with tender insides.
• Bobotie — Casserole of minced beef topped with egg custard. Complex historical roots with Dutch and Indonesian influences tied to Cape Malay.
• Bunny Chow — Curry served in a half-loaf of white bread (yes, not a typo.)
• Braai — …it’s grilled stuff on an open fire! Grill your own meats, find a braai restaurant, or you may also see community braai styled restaurants (see: De Vette Mossel locations). You can also look for local and/or game meats including impala, kudu, ostrich, etc.
• Meat Pies — They’re meat pies! You’ll see them everywhere, most likely -pepper steak- or -steak and kidney-. We loved carrying these as a hike meal :)
• Malva Pudding — A sweet, spongy cake with apricot jam and cream sauce, often served in custard and/or topped with ice cream.
• Carrot Cake — People really like carrot cake here. The cake has much less frosting than in the U.S. and the slices are usually gigantic for some reason.
• Gatsby — A sub sandwich filled with “slap chips” (kinda like wet french fries?) and a bunch of other stuff e.g. cold meats or masala steak and spicy sauce or other fillings. Someone told me to try this, so try it out? </aside>

Table of Contents

<aside> 🚢 🦁 🐒 🦌 🐆 🐘

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Johannesburg

We flew into Joburg and stayed in Rosebank. We did not have a packed itinerary in Joburg, but enjoyed the usual city conveniences (i.e nice coffee and cafes) along with a spa massage before we left on the road.

For fine dining, we went to Marble and enjoyed the local wagyu steak. A lot of the other places we considered were closed on Mondays.

The Panorama Route

The Panorama Route is a popular route on the way from Johannesburg and Kruger National Park and is a beautiful stretch in Mpumalanga that houses the Blyde River Canyon. Despite being smaller than some famous canyons like the Grand Canyon, I loved this one muuuch more (personally!) since it’s a “green canyon” packed with subtropical vegetation and accessible hiking trails.