The appeal
The Karoo is vast, semi-desert, and the opposite of the Cape's lush coast. Its towns are small, slow, and quietly food-obsessed. The dry climate that's hard for everything else is good for sheep, lamb, and the sort of frontier character that road-trippers cross the country for. The Karoo is the part of South Africa you don't expect and end up loving.
The towns worth rerouting for
Prince Albert is the gateway to the Swartberg Pass, a charmed village with good food and a Sunday-morning quiet you can hear. Nieu Bethesda is a tiny, off-grid town built around the Owl House, Helen Martins's extraordinary, strange, self-made artwork; come for the day, stay if it holds you. Graaff-Reinet is the older Karoo town, with Cape Dutch architecture, the Valley of Desolation, and more history per block than most of the region. Cradock is on the Great Fish River, home to Olive Schreiner's literary past, and a stop on the way to the Eastern Cape. Barrydale is the R62's farm-stall town and the pretti of the Klein Karoo; stop for the pies.
The drive that ties them together
The R62 runs from Montagu through the Klein Karoo, and it's the quieter, better alternative to the N2 for the leg between the Winelands and the Garden Route. The Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn and Prince Albert is one of the great drives in the country, unpaved in places, and worth a half-day on its own.
The food
Lamb. Karoo lamb is the region's gift to South African cooking, and the dry-bush herb flavour is unlike anything from wetter country. Bobotie, venison, the farm-stall pie, and the rooibos-and-biltong pantry. Eat lamb in Prince Albert and you'll understand why people reroute.
How to do it
Slow. The Karoo punishes a schedule. A day in each of two towns, not a sprint through five. The distances are long, the roads are empty, and the point is the quiet. Build in time to sit on a verandah with a coffee and do nothing, because that's what the Karoo is for.