South Africa Destinations
Nine provinces, and a practical way to work out which of them your trip is actually about.
South Africa is bigger than it looks on a map and more varied than almost any country of its size. The single most useful thing a first-time visitor can do is decide which two or three parts of it the trip is for, and let the rest go. This page is the map of how this site is organised so you can do that.
Start with the province
Every destination on this site sits inside one of South Africa’s nine provinces. The provinces are the country’s real administrative divisions, they are what road signs and official sources use, and they are stable — which makes them a better foundation than any marketing region.
Western Cape
Cape Town, the winelands, the Garden Route, whales and the Karoo. The usual place to start.
Eastern Cape
Malaria-free game reserves at Addo, the Wild Coast, and the quiet end of the Garden Route.
Northern Cape
The Kalahari, Namaqualand flowers, the Orange River and the country’s darkest skies.
KwaZulu-Natal
Warm-water beaches, the Drakensberg and Big Five reserves within one province.
Free State
Sandstone highlands, Golden Gate, Clarens and the road between everywhere else.
Gauteng
Johannesburg, Pretoria, the Apartheid Museum and the Cradle of Humankind.
North West
Pilanesberg and Madikwe: malaria-free Big Five within reach of Johannesburg.
Limpopo
The northern Kruger, the Waterberg, Mapungubwe and baobab country.
Mpumalanga
The southern Kruger, the Panorama Route and the Blyde River Canyon.
Then the tourism region
Below the province, most of the country is divided again into traveller-facing tourism regions. We use the regions each province’s own official tourism authority publishes, rather than inventing our own, and we name the authority on every province page so you can check us.
Two provinces are exceptions and we say so plainly. The Free State publishes five named tourism routes rather than geographic regions, so we organise it by destination instead. The North West tourism board’s website was offline when we checked and publishes no region scheme we can verify, so that province is recorded as provisional.
Then the destination
Individual destination guides — cities, towns, parks, reserves, passes and stretches of coast — sit under their province. A few places genuinely span provincial boundaries; the Kruger National Park is the obvious one, running along the eastern edge of both Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Those are treated as destinations in their own right and cross-linked from each province rather than filed under one of them.
How to choose
A rough guide, for a two-week first trip:
| If the trip is mainly about | Start here | Add |
|---|---|---|
| Scenery, food and wine, a road trip | Western Cape | Eastern Cape for Addo |
| A first Big Five safari | Mpumalanga | Gauteng for the museums |
| Safari without malaria precautions | North West or Eastern Cape | Gauteng or the Garden Route |
| Beach, mountains and bush together | KwaZulu-Natal | Nothing — it stands alone |
| Space, silence and long drives | Northern Cape | Free State on the way |
| History and how the country works | Gauteng | KwaZulu-Natal battlefields |
The single most common planning mistake. Trying to drive between Cape Town and the Kruger and back inside two weeks. The distance is roughly the length of Western Europe, and the trip becomes a driving holiday with two short stops. Fly between the two ends instead.
Destination guides published so far
Below province level, destination guides are written one at a time, from official and primary sources, and each is checked before it goes up. These are the ones live today.
- Hazyview — the Kruger gates, the Panorama Route and the malaria question
- Umhlanga — the beaches, the shark nets, and what the sardine run does to swimming
- The Waterberg — a UNESCO biosphere, horse safaris and Marakele
- Pilanesberg and Sun City — Big Five in a volcanic crater, two hours from Johannesburg
- Johannesburg — the museums that explain the country you are travelling through
- Addo — elephants, no malaria, and the road SANParks says to avoid