Exploring the Wilderness & Winelands Tour of South Africa

What to expect on this itinerary
Lion-filled savannah meets sensual vineyards, ancient elephant herds mix with historic colonial towns, the wilderness and Winelands combine to showcase an exquisite flagship of South Africa. On this 11-day tour, you explore the two paradigms, discovering how an atmospheric narrative runs through both distinctive landscapes and that there's always a place to enjoy a glass while gazing over the wild. Culminating with a stay in Cape Town, the tour also features exceptional hotels.
Customizable Itinerary
Johannesburg – Evening Arrival in South Africa
It's an evening arrival in Johannesburg, so you're whisked off to the InterContinental Hotel at O. R Tambo Airport for a quiet night before the wilderness. A small plane will take you out to the Sabi Sands tomorrow morning, so rest up, relax, and sample a couple of South African wines in the hotel's dining room. Most flights to the Sabi Sands and Kruger depart in the morning, designed to maximize the time that guests spend on safari, before bringing guests back to Johannesburg after a morning game drive or walk. An overnight in Johannesburg before safari is common on many South Africa tours.
What's Included:
Sabi Sands Game Reserve – Beautiful Big Game Safari in a Private Reserve
Sabi Sands Game Reserve – Safari in South Africa's Wilderness
Cape Winelands – Sensual Introductions to South African Wine
Cape Winelands – Gastronomic Treasures in South Africa's Oldest Towns
Cape Winelands – More Exquisite Tasting in the Winelands
Cape Town – Table Mountain and the Iconic Waterfront
Cape Town – Exploring Urban Cape Town
Cape Town – Wilderness at the Tip of Africa
Cape Town – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Lose yourself in the wilderness of South Africa with three days in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, a fabled haven for many of the continent's most famous animals
- Go on luxury big-game safari and create your own program of activities, all of which bring intimate angles on a wilderness that features much more than just the Big Five
- Open your senses to the subtle tones of South African wine with three days in the Cape Winelands, where hundreds of vineyards can provide the tasting journey
- Discover South Africa's oldest towns, colonial relics in the Winelands that are filled with gastronomic delights and a sense of grandeur
- Explore Cape Town, starting with the summit of Table Mountain with expansive views of the region
- Uncover a more rarely seen side of Cape Town with a visit to Khayelitsha and a community project that is big on smiles
- Relax in some of South Africa's finest accommodations, from a boutique estate in the Winelands to a glitzy hotel in the city
Detailed Description
South Africa is a country of panoramas. There are few designated lookout points; instead, almost every angle has you reaching for the camera, seduced by the landscape's theater of enchantment. Vineyards flood rocky valleys; the green rows interrupted by jagged peaks and whitewashed farmhouses. Iconic sweeps of savannah are alive with lion roars and the giant mammals of Africa. There's always a view, as well as a glass of celebrated wine to sip on as you savor the scene. Whether it's uncorking the bubbly in the bush, surrounded by an elephant herd, or sampling Pinotage directly from the vineyard, wilderness and wine go hand in hand in South Africa.
On this luxury 11-day South Africa tour, you explore how two seemingly different paradigms effortlessly come together. Three days in the Sabi Sands provides an immersive safari experience, the wilderness extending beyond the horizon and the mammals gently roaming past the terrace. After picking from an exceptional cellar, you get to enjoy safari encounters while simply relaxing at the lodge. Just sit back and marvel at the procession. Exhilarating intimate encounters come during the game drives as the private reserve is a celebrated home of all the Big Five and much more. In particular, there are abundant sightings of usually elusive animals like leopards and rhinos. Wine can be brought on safaris, so you sip on a glass of Chenin Blanc or Pinotage in a clearing surrounded by mammals.
Spend the next few days in the Cape Winelands, the treasured home of the South African wine industry. The country's oldest towns are located here, colonial relics of whitewashed stone and gastronomic grandeur. Hundreds of vineyards can take you on a tasting journey, with an expert local guide providing access to exclusive estates and tasting sessions with the winemakers. While Pinotage provides an obvious focus, there's an eclectic mix of wines to explore here, from the crisp modern whites to Bordeaux blends doused in tradition.
Complete the South Africa tour in Cape Town, just an hour from the Winelands. Table Mountain is an unmistakable place to start, one of the world’s new seven wonders of the world that define the city and keeps everyone in a relaxed, genial mood. You'll also spend a day exploring an alternative side to this popular city, visiting a community project and local kitchen in Khayelitsha, as well as the vibrant slave houses of Bo-Kaap. Then return to the wilderness, a journey to the southwestern tip of Africa passing penguins and seals, dramatic mountain passes and roving ocean views.
Exceptional hotels are included throughout during this South Africa tour, further elevating the delights of combining wine and wilderness.
Starting Price
$7,200 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
- Accommodations
- In-country transportation
- Some or all activities and tours
- Expert trip planning
- 24x7 support during your trip
Your final trip cost will vary based on your selected accommodations, activities, meals, and other trip elements that you opt to include.
Verified Traveler Reviews
Based on 559 reviews
No Stone Left Unturned
Where do we begin?
Our agent has been by our side through every step of the way. She reassured us that our honeymoon would be tailored specifically to what we would want and love to do and it was! Our agent spent numerous hours on the phone with both of us listening to our concerns and excitement. She was swift with her responses, kept us up to date, made suggestions, and most importantly kept us in budget!
We met our second contact half way through our planning process. We were hesitant moving forward and leaving our original agent since we formed such a tight bond but from our first interaction with our second contact to our last she has been nothing but outstanding. She helped us with the payment process, the flight information, and picking out some of the best restaurants in Cape Town (goodness gracious, I think we gained 10 lbs. each ha). Knowing that she would be on the ground in Cape Town eased our minds as we approached our first trip to the motherland.
Our final contact did a spectacular job with running through our itinerary a few days before we departed. This phone conversation allowed us to ask our last minute questions, understand about tipping (who to tip, how much to tip, when to tip), etc. Another great member of the travel company's team.
On to the trip…
Locations: Cape Town, Stanford, Sabi Sands & Kapalma
1st Stop: One and Only (Cape Town)
2nd Stop: Mosaic (Stanford):
3rd Stop: Dulini (Sabi Sands)
4th Stop: Camp Jabulani (Kapalma)
What we did…
Cape Peninsula, Cape of Good Hope, Penguins, Botanical Gardens, Uthando Township Tour, Stellenbosch visit with 4 wine tasting stops, quad biking, beach walk, 13 game drives, elephant ride, cheetah encounter (lucky enough to pet one), countless 5-star restaurants (favorite being Kloof Street House), plunge pool experience, showered outside in the bush, bush walk (woah that was scary and so surreal), and of course a bush wee (you will understand once you experience it).
Our travel company did a phenomenal job making us feel special on our honeymoon. Each of our accommodations were aware of our honeymoon where they surprised us with free bottles of wine/champagne, gave us complimentary massages, messages to the two us upon our arrival, presented with a self-made poster from the children of Khayelitsha Township and multiple intimate surprise dinners. During the course of our trip we felt like VIPs. Even though we were not told by our travel company, we absolutely could tell the company's touch was there and without them we would have never been able to make our honeymoon this special. We have and will continue to rave to our family & friends about how phenomenal this company made our experience. We can’t wait to work with them again for our next trip.
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I like to think of myself as a low maintenance girl, but the truth is, I’m not. And that’s ok. Work hard play hard. So when I, with my parents, husband and daughter decided to take the trip of a lifetime to South Africa, every detail was really important. We knew we wanted a mix of a Safari vacation with a visit to Capetown. For the Safari, all I had heard about was Kruger National park and then nothing else. My entire view of SA was really what I knew through friends I met during their visits to the US. I found this travel agent on Zicasso and, although she didn’t have that many reviews, she beat out two other well-known companies because of her attention to detail, her exceptional hotel recommendations and her anticipation of what we might need.
For example, when looking for Safari lodges to stay at, she asked whether we were ok being in the malaria zone because my daughter is 10 and parents are older. I had no idea the park was in the malaria zone and none of the other travel agents mentioned this to me! Instead, our agent found us a fantastic 5 star lodge in Welgevonden reserve (Mhondoro Game Lodge) where we had the absolute best guide and staff ever. She also booked us on a charter flight from Johannesburg to the reserve and back, and then the domestic flights from Johannesburg to Capetown and back (we had already booked the international flights on our own). During our trip, our agent even went online and checked us in for our flights! She also arranged for executive meet and greet services for all our intra-country transfers which helped a ton. Our travel agent also did an excellent job of booking all road transfers for us and every driver was at least 10 minutes early - we never had to wait - and super friendly and helpful. She told all hotels, restaurants, etc. that I was gluten-free, she was always available via WhatsApp during our vacation and we even met her for lunch while out for a day tour of Stellenbosch & the winelands - so nice to put her pretty face to a name.
All in all, I would HIGHLY recommend this agent and this travel team for any travel in Southern Africa (in addition to S. Africa, I believe she also does Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and some other southern African countries). This travel agent has set an extremely high standard and I wish I could just take her back home with me to organize the rest of my life!
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We are fairly seasoned travellers, and did a lot of homework before planning this trip. Nothing really prepared us for how fabulous it would be. I'd say it was the trip of a lifetime, except that we fully intend to go back.
From first contact to last, this travel agency was a pleasure to deal with. They were responsive to our ideas about what we wanted to do and see, and put together several itineraries which also included many suggestions that we had not thought of.
Ours was a private 3 week tour, beginning in Durban, then to the Sabi Sands game reserve (where we stayed at the Londolozi Founders Camp). We took the Blue Train from Pretoria to Cape Town where we stayed a few days at the very lovely Cape Grace Hotel, and spent 3 wonderful days at the a wine estate near Stellenbosch.
Our travel agency arranged all of our transportation and excursions. Everything went like clockwork: all of our guides or transports were right on time, and without exception they were extremely pleasant and knowledgeable people. We learned a lot about the country from each of them.
South Africa is a long way from Canada. What made us feel very secure was that we had the personal cell phone number of our agent and knew that we could call her at any hour if something went awry.
The very best thing is that we never had to call!
I would recommend this tour company highly, and would definitely use them again,
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Nothing but great things to say about our experience with this Africa safari travel planner!! The day after we entered our Zicasso request online, we were contacted by our agent. We clicked immediately. She got right away what we wanted to achieve during our trip and began helping us to develop a workable plan. If we drove her crazy with all of our revisions, you would never have known it: she was focused, resourceful, and upbeat, offering great advice at critical junctures to come up with a plan that met our needs and maximized both our time and convenience. She went the extra mile to ensure that we had a great trip, checked in frequently to find out how things were going and made great recommendations for restaurants and local attractions. We felt very pampered and we were! The outlines of our final trip included stops in Cape Town; the Blyde River Canyon; Kruger National Park; Victoria Falls; Botswana; and Johannesburg.
The company made all arrangements for us at two great safari camps: Kings in Kruger, and Shinde in Botswana. Both were excellent – knowledgeable guides; incredible surroundings; generous and welcoming staff. We lucked out and managed to see the Big Five in just two days! A highlight of the Botswana safari was spending 45 minutes observing a pride of eight lions congregated about 40 feet away from our open-air jeep. At Kruger, we had a similar up-close and personal viewing experience of two leopards and two white rhinos.
Our travel company also made all arrangements for five internal flights and pick-ups and one wonderfully guided day tour of the Blyde River Canyon: there was never a hitch! We even crossed four borders. The hand-offs were smooth; the transport vehicles clean and comfortable; the drivers safe and enthusiastic. All the practical details were attended to from tasty box lunches to confirmation calls the day before transfers.
Our travel company also arranged two wonderful tours in Cape Town for us and we were especially privileged to have them led by the Managing Director of the company. He is a consummate professional and was incredibly knowledgeable and informative about every topic that we discussed. He is also charming and delightful on a personal level and all of these qualities are reflected in the company he manages. Our two day-tours were to the Cape of Good Hope which included a spectacular gourmet multi-course wine-paired lunch at the Flagship, a restaurant located in the home of the chef and situated near the edge of the sea in Simon’s Town with beautiful views all around. We were joined by a handful of other quests and spent a lovely afternoon in their company sharing a great culinary experience.
The Managing Director also led us on a one day tour that included stops at Hermanus in the Western Cape for whale watching and at two beautiful towns in the wine country – Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. We tasted the extraordinary wines of the Delaire Graff and Tokara estates, both of which had distinctive architecture and art, but the Delaire setting was breathtakingly luxurious.
All in all, an unforgettable trip thanks to this company!
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We had high expectations about our trip to South Africa. Others who have been on safari have raved about it. Although we travel a lot, this was our first time using a travel agency. I'm the type that likes to research the options and make decisions based on our personal preferences, however, I knew I was over my head planning a three week trip to an area we knew nothing about. Working with this Africa safari travel company was fantastic and they exceeded every expectation we had for the trip. Every detail was thought out and planned for, even ones we did not know would be helpful like an escort through Johannesburg airport.
We gave our travel company our flight arrival and departure dates and an overall budget. They booked our hotels in Cape Town, Winelands, and 2 safaris as well as a 2-night trip on Rovos Rail. In addition, they made dinner reservations, booked a personal guide for the first part of our trip, arranged airport transportation. Every choice they made was one I would have made myself and matched our style perfectly.
Our trip to South Africa was much more than we expected which was focused on the safari aspect. Cape Town is beautiful, the mountains are stunning, the restaurants had some of the best food we have ever had, topped only by the food we had at our next stop in Franschhoek and Stellenbosch (Winelands). You'll think you are in any high end European restaurant. The wine tours, restaurants, scenery and towns in Winelands far exceed our experiences in Napa and Sonoma which we live near. I wish we had planned extra time there.
We thank this company for the wonderful experience, have fallen in love with the area and can not wait to go back!
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Our safari travel company and our tour designer were the perfect choice for our 3+ week southern Africa vacation. We have used Zicasso referrals for several monthlong vacations, including Vietnam [2015], and this 27 day trip to southern Africa [2 Tanzania safari locations, Zanzibar Island for a beach stay, then into South Africa's Cape Town and Franschhoek in the Winelands, and finally several days the Dulini Private Game Reserve in the Sabi Sands section of Kruger National Park. Our travel agent recommended terrific lodgings (save one, more on that later) and arrangements including transfers were flawless. We have already begun a conversation with her about a future trip to the Maldives or Seychelles. She wisely steered us to the right regions for safari for our January/February travel, knowledgeably aware of where to have the best viewing opportunities, she listened to our preferences and understood our style of travel perfectly. I cannot recommend this agent and her safari travel company highly enough.
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