South Africa Travel Guide

The most european part of Africa.

I am quite sure my rating would be much hire, if I had visited Southafricas Top-destinations in wildlife! ( Addo-Park, Krüger-Park) Unfortenately they were not on my route ( Cape to Namibia), but what i ´ve seen makes me wanna come back some day.
The Kgalagadi is quite nice with larger number of predators, but we had not much luck there. The stuff there was very nice and i love the red soil of the Kalahari. For me the most beautiful part of the soutafrican part of the trip was capetown and the wonderful table mountain scenery! It was much safer, than I thought before!
My wife enjoyed the Namaqualand with its flowerful deserts most! But to see this, you have to visit it during spring!
Most of the streets were easy to drive. In Kgalagadi it was a bit difficult! One amusing thing: Our 4x4 was equipped with winter tyres, which was not the best choice with temperatures up to 35 Celsius.
But we finished safe, and enjoyed our journey very much!

Animals which are close to the observers.

Dissapointing

The experience in Kruger Park was ok but not how we expected, we didnt saw too many animals. We think that our guide wasnt good, he drive for the same part of the park most of the time, we spend our without seeing animals.

We didnt saw any cheetas, leopards and Rhinos. The thing is that most of the time you can see them there, so we think that our guide wasnt good. We’ve been in Tanzania but there is another thing, we really enjoy there, the parks, the tour guide and we saw a lot of animals.

We noticed that many people that pay a lot in the private reserve they has more chances to see animals and different species, I dont know if that a point to consider because they own a lot of animals , and the know exactlu where they are, but is very expensive too. Or maybe the option to drive by yourself could bebetter because you can go everywhere..

Also the communication during the tour with the agency wasnt good (Shinzelle Safaris).

We regret to add Kruger Park in our trip to Africa, that money could worth it, in another place, because we visited Tanzania and Uganda and everything there was amazing.

Awesome Tour from VIVA Safari, Bad customer Service from Booking agency

The tour ist just great. Awesome staff at the Camps, good Guides, lots of animals. 5*! You can book it from a Lot of booking agencies.

What was really bad is the fact that we were not informed about our late Pickup. The driver was there around 11 instead of 8.30/9. We could not reach anyone at the booking Agency, the south african representative told us that he did not work there anymore.

Difficult to enter

I am unable to write a review of South Africa, its wildlife, or its landscapes due to the frustrating experience with the online eVisa system.
Our first application was rejected after nearly three weeks without any update on the website, despite being notified of a decision. It took several phone calls, emails, and text messages to receive the official verdict.
We are still waiting for a decision on our second application, two weeks after submission.
Our travel plans for July had to be rescheduled for August in the hope that the visa will be approved in time.
Having traveled to numerous countries, we find this process to be the most exasperating. While most countries have their peculiarities in documentation requests, requiring copies of our deceased parents' death certificates appeared unreasonable.
Other eVisas we've applied for were processed within hours or days, but this takes weeks.

Aquila is terrible. May as well go to a zoo!!

Terrible. Not really a safari. Beside main road, loads of fences and gates. Few animals. Day at zoo would.be better

Poor Communication and Follow up

We saved money for our South African vacation for over a year and a half and the part we were most looking forward to was our 2-day Safari in Pilanesberg. My husband even purchased a new camera for the game drives.

Shortly after we arrived at the Bakubung Lodge in Pilanesberg we were told by another guest that the evening game drive had been cancelled due to wildfires. The entire park had been closed for the first time in history. We were told that we would be informed of the status of our morning drive later that night. Had it not been for this individual we would not have been told of the cancellation- we did not hear anything from Go Safari.

We inquired on the status of the morning game drive several times that evening and nobody at the resort seemed to know anything. We went to bed disappointed but hopeful for a morning drive.

We awoke the next morning at 5AM to get ready just in case the drive was going to occur. We went to the lobby and, again, nobody had any information. Worse still....no word from Go Safari. After standing in the lobby for an hour exchanging awkward glances with the front desk staff we finally went back to the room assuming the drive was cancelled (we were literally the only guests standing in the lobby). Still...no word from Go Safari.

Our ride back to Joburg was not scheduled to pick us up until noon so we had 6 hours to sit there and do nothing. So, we sat on a bench outside and waiting for 6 hours to be picked up. As we sat there, we had hoped for word from Go Safari. Anything would have been nice. "We are sorry about the cancellations", "Would you like to try again another day?", "Can we provide a voucher for a future date?" But Go Safari did not reach out.

We understand that the wildfires were not anyone's fault and those things happen. We can tolerate disappointment. What we are upset about is the total lack of communication from Go Safari and the horrible customer service we have received.

We spent nearly $900USD on one night at a lodge with crappy food and poor service from the staff.

We had several more days to spend in Joburg and would have gladly paid for another driver to take us back after he park opened so we could even get one game drive in.

This was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime. Go Safari really messed this one up.

I've given almost the same rating as for the Kruger park as we didn't see anything of the rest of South Africa other than the Sabie Sands and the Klasserie reserves.

I don't have enough time in other parks to rate them. In fact I haven't been to any of these listed below...yet. But we do love going to Mpumalanga province for vacation. The scenery is fantastic.

SA is the place to see the big 5 in natural and safe environment. See my flickr stream.