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"Ultimate South Africa Honeymoon Itinerary: A Detailed Exploration"

  • Writer: Mary Kate gKing
    Mary Kate gKing
  • Mar 26, 2024
  • 9 min read

Updated: Jul 22, 2024

Itinerary October 2022 Trip



General information about traveling to South Africa:

  • Currency is called a “Rand”. 1USD is = to $18.07 Rand (Zar)

  • October in Cape Town, Sunrise is at 6:01am and Sunset is at 7:02pm


If you are reading this, you are considering going to South Africa- one of the coolest, most unique places to travel to! Nick and I went for our honeymoon and I think we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to top this trip! A few general things about traveling to South Africa, it is fairly inexpensive as long as you are not doing anything touristy - anything involving tourism is decently expensive - especially the private game reserves! For us I tried to save money with where we stayed in Cape Town to afford us to have our safaris be luxurious! One thing that I don’t recommend is trying to cut costs with the safari. Kruger National Park is massive and shares its borders with private game reserves. There are no fences so the animals come and go amongst all the land. The difference between staying in Kruger NP vs a private game reserve, is at Kruger NP the vehicles are much larger and have to stay on a driven path. While you can see lots of animals, there are more crowds and it's harder to have a long personal experience like the private game reserve. The private game reserve limits 3 vehicles when animals are spotted and often it's just one 6 person vehicle with animals. You can go off road and get CRAZY close to the animals on the private game reserve. I don’t know how else to emphasize this, but staying at a private game reserve is the number 1 thing to do when going to South Africa. 


As far as the way Nick and I travel, we like to stay busy and explore rather than relax on beaches (although we did end our trip relaxing on beaches in Mauritius and it was very nice). I personally wouldn’t change anything about our trip. It was everything I was hoping for and more!  We hiked, went  paragliding, cage diving with sharks, saw penguins, and went on a wine trolly tour. We did all of this in just the first 4 days of our trip- so definitely look at the itinerary and feel free to cut / adjust on what fits your interests. Typically I always have small things I would change after a trip but I have 0 regrets from this trip! 


My comments in red that’ll be suggestions or important notes I’ve made after reflecting on this trip.  


South Africa Itinerary:


Depart from D.C. on Tuesday October 18th @10:45am

  • Red Eye Flight


Day 1 (Wednesday October 19th): Arrive, car, explore, dinner - FYI Capetown is a really windy city - for ladies especially important when thinking about outfits - dresses!

  • Flight: Arrive via Ethiopian Airways at 1:45pm  Car Rental: Hertz

  • Accomodations:  La Grenadine- 10/19-10/23 (breakfast included)  The CUTEST place & perfect location! It’s walking distance to lots of good restaurants, 10 min drive to Table Mt / Lions Head & 10 min drive to the water. (They have parking available) Their homemade breakfast can be eaten inside or in the garden. It’s the cutest little place! Highly recommend staying here!

  • Address: 15 Park Road, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa ; phone +27 21 424 1358

  • Dinner:  The Silo Hotel for drinks 

    • Reservation Booked for 5pm. Walk from Hotel - There is a cute waterfront area that has a lot of restaurants you can walk around at

    • Willoughby (45 min walk, on water)

    • The Waterside (40 min walk, on water)

    • Si Cantin (on water)

    • Firefish (on water)

Day 2 (Thurs 10/20): Morning cage diving with sharks, afternoon sunset hike Table Mt. 

  • Cage Diving: $308 total for (4 hours) includes hotel pickup, breakfast & lunch

    • Pickup at 7am from La Grenadine

    • "Due to weather and tide conditions, all tours and tour times are ONLY confirmed the day before your tour. Please contact us on +27 (0) 76 245 5880 the day prior to your tour to receive your exact meeting or collection time for your shark cage diving experience."

    • Contacts: Liz Botha / Phone No. +2776 245 5880 /Cell No. 076 245 5880

    • Email: bookings@whitesharkprojects.co.za

    • * SEASICK TABLETS - If you know you are prone to motion sickness or even if you are unsure if you are, we advise you take medication 2 hours before we depart so as not to spoil your adventure!

  • Info about Hiking Table Mountain:

    • Hike up for sunset then take cable car down 

    • Most popular / straightforward trail: Platteklip George- steep ascend Can buy tickets ahead of time to ride the cable car down or can buy tickets at the top of mountain. (you can do both up & down on the table car if you don’t want to hike)

    • Don’t purchase too early because if the weather is bad, cable cars do not run / no good view - more crowded on weekends.

  • Dinner Options: 

    • Sea Breeze (10 min walk)

    • Kloof Street House (5 min walk) - Really cool spot with good food! It does get super busy so just keep that in mind!

    • Aubergine

    • Rick’s Café Américain (has views of TM)

Day 3 (Fri. 10/21): Paragliding & Cape Peninsula: Muizenberg, boulders beach, Cape Point & kristenbosch 

  • Schedule Paragliding at 07:30am (lasts 1 hour), get back to B&B by 9am, leave for the Cape Peninsula by 10am. Total trip should take roughly 7hrs which would get us back to Cape Town by 5pm. Can have a later dinner when we arrive back in Cape Town. 

  • Paragliding off Signal Hill: I don’t like falling - my stomach gets queasy on roller coasters and I LOVED paragliding! It was so pretty with the water & mountain view

    • Signal Hill is10 minute drive from our bed and breakfast

    • Directions: Signal Hill, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

  • Cape Peninsula: Total drive for Cape Peninsula: 2hrs  (estimated length of trip 7hrs)

    • Cape Town -> Muizenberg (30 min drive)

      • Muizenberg- colorful huts & surfing (1st stop ) (can spend around 1 hr)

    • Muizenberg -> Boulders Beach (20 minutes)

      • Boulders Beach in Simonstown (penguins) (need to pay conservation fee but worth it!) To get really close you can head down foxy beach. If looking for some beach time with less crowds can go to windmill beach - might see a penguin there. (spend 2 hours here, pack a lunch?)

    • Boulders Beach -> Cape Point - Cape of Good Hope Trail (30 minutes)

      • Lunch: Bertha’s Seafood or The Two and Sixpence Tavern or Lighthouse Cafe

    • Cape Point / Lunch -> Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens

      • Can walk the Boomslang (treetop canopy walkway) (spend 2 hours here) This was pretty but definitely not a must if you want to cut this out for timing purposes

    • Kristenbosch -> Cape Town (15 minutes)

  • Dinner: Fyn at 6:30pm Reservation BEST meal I’ve had in my whole life! We were there for 4 hrs with the “10 course experience & wine pairing”. This restaurant is ranked in the top 40 in the world & it totally makes sense why! Highly recommend splurging at this super fancy & delicious restaurant!

Day 4 (Sat 10/22): Sunrise hike lions head, Wine Tram tour A sunrise hike followed by a wine tour after our wine pairing with dinner the night before was quite ambitious! The drinks from dinner definitely hit and 4:15am was a STRUGGLE to wake up and do the hike. That being said I think the sunrise hike at Lions Head is so worth it! I liked this hike more than Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain hike! You kind of need to do it as a sunrise though, especially if you’re doing it on the weekend. On our way down there was a line on the mountain with locals trying to hike up!

  • Lions Head Hike: Leave for hike at 4:15am, less than 10 min drive from B&B

    • 4:30am-6am for ascend, 30 minutes at top, 90 minute descent, get back to B&B no later than 8:30am. 

    • Get picked up by private vehicle at 9am to take us to tram terminal (1hr away); arriving at terminal by 10:15am in time for 10:30am departure from terminal 

    • It’s a 5Km (3hr hike) Popular hike for locals, so go during the week to avoid crowds

    • **Should not use coordinates in google maps because it will take you to the wrong starting point, instead use: (-33.936899, 18.394841).

    • **Save this number: table mountain National park emergency number: 086-1106-417 

    • Start hiking 90 minutes before sun comes up (will need headlamps)

    • Splits into 2 routes after about an hour in (chains route is the better / more challenging route) will need a backpack for chains route / not have anything in your hands. Bring jacket / layers due to weather changing

    • Things to bring: hiking shoes, water, sunscreen, jacket, head lamps, backpack, snacks, camera 

  • Wine Tram tour (departures start at 9:30am and final returns are at 5:30pm) Wine tram tour is an easy way to see South Africa’s famous wine region in a condensed period of time. There are multiple different colored lines you can take where you ride a hop on hop off train and decide which wineries you want to go along the way. We hit 4 wineries in one day along the orange line which was recommended to Nick by some of his wine people from work! Click the blue Wine Tram Tour link to see more about it!

  • Dinner:  The Lawns at Roundhouse (45 min from winery)

Day 5 (Sun 10/23): safari time- travel to private reserve (see flight document: CPT-JNB-> Tintswalo) Going to be staying at Tintswalo Private Safari Lodge

Tintswalo was the most amazing place I’ve ever stayed!! The attention to detail was phenomenal and they’re very helpful with the planning process and coordinating your travel to the lodge. They had unique dining experiences in different locations for each meal with delicious food. I was speechless from the time we touched down in Manyeleti game reserve to being greeted by a herd of elephants in front of the lobby as soon as we walked in. If you can only do one safari, I HIGHLY recommend staying with Tintswalo!  

As far as deciding how long to stay, I recommend getting 10 game drives total, ideally 5 at one resort and 5 at another. We did 11 total with 3 nights at one lodge and 3 nights at another lodge. All the lodges are really similar with how they do game drives to the bush. There are a few reasons to stay at 2 different resorts but a main reason is it’s an option to see two different game reserves. Tintswalo safari lodge was in the Manyeleti reserve where Ulusaba safari lodge was in Sabi Sands. The big cats are pretty territorial which means often locations high in lions will be low in leopards and vice versa. We saw the big 5 at both reserves but there were way bigger prides of lions in Manyeleti and a much bigger presence of leopards at Sabi Sands.

Room/Unit(s)1 x Explorer Suites: All Inclusive - 2 adults No. Nights3

  • ContactsLizaan Zurel / Email: res1@tintswalo.com

  • Phone No+27-21-7730900 / Cell No.+27-784565147

  • Address: Orpen road Manyeleti Nature Reserve 1362, Manyeleti Game Reserve, South Africa

  • Transportation from Johannesburg airport organized by Tintswalo

Day 6 (Mon 10/24): First full day at Tintswalo Private Safari Lodge 

Day 7 (Tues 10/25): Second full day at Tintswalo Private Safari Lodge

Day 8 (Wed 10/26):, Leave (Tintswalo), travel to next game reserve (Ulusaba)

  • Ulusaba: Arrival: Wednesday 10/26;  Leaving: Saturday 10/29

  • Will have ground transportation between lodges - 2.5 hours booked through GAP tours - $135 per person, organized by Ulusaba and coordinated with Tintswalo

Day 9 (Thurs 10/27): First full day at 2nd game reserve (Ulusaba) 

Day 10 (Fri 10/28): Second full day at Ulsaba (go to local town to volunteer this day) 

Day 11 (Sat 10/29): Leave Ulsaba and fly to Mauritius

  • Ulsaba will schedule flight from Ulsaba to KMIA Nelspruit airport, then to Johannesburg 

  • KMIA Nelspruit airport (8:30am) to Johannesburg (9:25am) via AIRLINK (4Z836)

  • JNB(13:35) to Mauritius (19:35)

As I’ve mentioned, Nick and I don’t really like too much downtime / relaxing when we are traveling. However, after this trip, we were SO excited to relax on the beaches in Mauritius. We stayed at a nice resort that gave a discount to honeymooners. There were nice beaches with activities at the resort. Mauritius has so many things to do between hikes, waterfalls, and snorkeling. 

Day 12 (Sun 10/30): Resort life in Mauritius ~ relax~ (sunset cruise?)

Day 13: (Mon. 10/31): Resort life in Mauritius (scuba dive / snorkel)

Day 14: (Tues. 11/1): Resort life in Mauritius 

Day 15: (Wed. 11/2): Fly back to USA (mauritius -> Johannesburg -> USA (might have more stops)


Leave Africa on November 2nd 

Arrive back to USA on November 3rd


Accommodations:

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