Garden Route Self Drive Holiday, South Africa

Fourteen nights through the Cape and along the Garden Route, self-guided and tailor-made, in South Africa.

The Garden Route is the most driven stretch of road in the country for good reason: four hundred miles of coast between mountains and sea, with forest, lagoons and the Tsitsikamma cliffs along it, and nothing about the driving that demands any particular skill.

Cape Town opens it, then the Winelands at Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, and Route 62 inland through the Klein Karoo, which is the alternative to the coast road and much emptier. The Garden Route follows east, then the Wild Coast beyond it, which is a different proposition entirely: rolling hills, scattered villages and almost no development. The accommodation is chosen for its community and conservation programmes, which here includes a property running an all-women wildlife patrol working against poaching. A Kruger or Eastern Cape safari can be added, and so can Victoria Falls.

The itinerary is a tailor-made sample rather than a fixed package, so the inclusions are not itemised in detail on the operator’s page and the cost varies with the season and the standard of accommodation chosen, with the published figure a starting point; flights are not included. The price shown is per person excluding flights. Fifteen days at the lower end of the range is good value for South Africa. Spring and autumn are the best of the weather, and no wildlife sighting can be promised on any safari extension. Fifteen days is enough to cover the Cape, the Winelands and the full Garden Route without rushing, and the Wild Coast at the far end is the part of the route most visitors never reach.