Road Trips
Road trip intelligence
Routes, scenic drives, mountain passes, and our signature feature: what's genuinely worth stopping for — not everything that exists along the way.
Signature feature
What's worth stopping for?
Pick a route. We show you the stops worth sacrificing vacation time for — with Trip Role and recommended time.
Featured routes
Drives worth planning around
Garden Route
Cape Town → Knysna / Plettenberg Bay
The famous coastal drive — and how to do it without the tourist-trap stops.
Route 62
Stellenbosch → Oudtshoorn
The inland alternative to the Garden Route. Quieter, weirder, often better.
Panorama Route
Kruger area → Blyde River Canyon
Pair with a Kruger safari. viewpoints, waterfalls, and one genuinely great canyon.
All routes
Every route we've written up
- Half-day loop
Panorama Route
The escarpment drive above the Blyde River Canyon — God's Window, the Potholes, and the Three Rondavels — best done out of Graskop.
- 4-5 hours direct; 3 days to do it
Route 62
The inland alternative to the N2 — the Klein Karoo wine valley, hot springs, and the Swartberg Pass to the coast.
- 4-5 hours driving; 5-7 days to do it
Garden Route
South Africa's most famous road trip — 350 km of lagoon, forest, beach, and cliff from Mossel Bay to the Tsitsikamma.
- 1.5 hours direct; a full day with stops
Cape Town to Hermanus (Whale Coast)
The shortest big-scenery drive out of Cape Town — over Sir Lowry's Pass to the whale-watching coast, with a shark-diving and farm-village detour.
- Full day
Cape Winelands Loop
The three great Cape wine towns in a loop from the city — Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, and Paarl — each with a different character and lunch stop.
- 1.5 hours direct; a full day
West Coast Flower Route
Up the West Coast to Langebaan's lagoon and Paternoster's whitewashed village — and in August and September, one of the world's great wildflower shows.
- 2.5 hours direct; a long day
Cape Town to Cape Agulhas
Down the N2 and over the Agulhas plain to the southern tip of Africa — the geographic footnote that's worth a standing-at-the-edge moment.
- 4.5 hours direct; a full day via Panorama
Johannesburg to Kruger (via the Panorama Route)
The self-drive from Johannesburg to southern Kruger via the escarpment — Dullstroom's mist, the Panorama Route, and a 20-minute gate at Hazyview.
- Half-day driving; 2 days to see it
Greater Kruger & Panorama Loop
The escarpment loop above Kruger — God's Window, the Blyde River Canyon, the potholes, and the forest-and-waterfall towns of Graskop and Sabie.
- 3.5 hours direct
Johannesburg to Clarens & Golden Gate
Out of the Highveld and into the Maluti foothills — Clarens, Golden Gate, and the Free State's only genuine tourist village.
- 2.5 hours direct; a full day with stops
Durban to the Drakensberg (Sani Pass)
From the KZN coast up into the southern Drakensberg — the Midlands Meander, Howick Falls, and the Sani Pass road to Lesotho's highest pub.
- 3 hours direct
Durban to iSimangaliso & St Lucia
Up the KZN North Coast to the hippo-proofed town inside iSimangaliso — beach resorts, dolphins, and the estuary at dawn.
- 4 hours direct; a full day with Addo
Eastern Cape: Safari to Sea
From the Friendly City to the eastern Garden Route through the malaria-free Eastern Cape reserves — Addo first, then the Tsitsikamma forest.
- 5 hours direct
Namaqualand Flower Route
The N7 north into Namaqualand — a sun-baked nothing for ten months of the year and one of the planet's great wildflower explosions in August and September.
- 3.5 hours direct
Kalahari Transit: Upington to the Kgalagadi
The long orange-road transit from Upington to the Kgalagadi — the last fuel and figs before the Kalahari dunes and the transfrontier park.
- Full day
Cape Peninsula Drive
Around the Cape Peninsula from the city to the naval town and penguin colony — Chapman's Peak, Hout Bay, Cape Point, and Boulders.
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Steal our route.
Our first-timer South Africa itinerary, route notes, and the stops worth making room for.