Take a scroll through spectacular Sani Pass – which connects KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho – with these beautiful photographs, captured by LOUISE VAN DEN AARDWEG… Sunrise Day 1 at Sani Top Lesotho Lesotho is a landlocked kingdom, surrounded by South Africa. Rivers cross the hauntingly beautiful landscape, and mountain ranges rise as high as 3,500m. Basotho […]

For decades one of Rome’s biggest heartaches has been the Tiber – the gorgeous river snaking through its heart has been totally overlooked. Until now, that is – and renowned South African artist William Kentridge is creating lots of buzz with a mural bigger than the one in the Sistine Chapel. The largest public art work in […]

For anyone overseas feeling homesick for South Africa, or even for someone in Cape Town feeling lus for some views of the Kruger Park or the Blyde River Canyon, Google Maps is partly answering the call. Short of taking a trip on a second’s notice, you can click on Google’s newly launched South Africa, the Mzansi […]

Settle back for ten minutes and enjoy this beautifully edited visual diary of a Dutch couple’s “amazing road trip on the beautiful African continent, filmed in HD. What a beautiful journey. We visited South Africa, Swaziland and The Seychelles…” The clips were filmed with Gopro Hero 3 and Nikon D5500, and the video was edited with Final […]

Cape Town might be high on many a traveller’s bucket list but there are at least 9 other destinations in South Africa equally worth seeing, according to the US site Mashable. “For a medium-sized country,” Mashable says in a recent story, “South Africa has a lot going on.” (We choose an 11th at the end.) The list, which […]

The far-flung island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic – not to be confused with the one off Australia – might be known to many in South Africa, but opportunities to visit Napoleon’s last place of exile have been few. At least until now. British Airways-owned Comair has announced that it will soon start flying weekly from Johannesburg to a […]

South Africa is train-travel country. It has not only one of the world’s best luxury trains, but two – Rovos Rail (pictured above) and the Blue Train. As we reported yesterday, now there’s a third train that is almost luxury, the Shongololo Express, which has been taken over by Rovos. What’s more, all three trains offer something […]

The luxury South African train company Rovos Rail – which has long been running neck and neck with the Blue Train in pampered rail travel – has bought the “three star” Shongololo Express, a 19-coach train that has been running a select number of two-week tours across the country. For a fraction of the cost of […]

Last year LLOYD KOPPEL was invited along for both the local and international #meetsouthafrica bloggers’ road trips… to film and capture their experience on video. “What a privilege to travel around South Africa with some of the best travel bloggers and travel writers in the country. Amazing people! Amazing road trip!” says Lloyd of the first video. […]

Get lost in nature… Go hiking in the Drakensberg Mountains… 2. Or cool off on the river banks… 3. Relax in a tree-hide… 4. Visit our beautiful gardens – like Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens… 5. Or take a road-trip – be prepared for views like this… 6. Then there’s Table Mountain – one of the world’s Seven […]

In this elegy to Johannesburg’s magnificent ridges, Kathy Munro of the Heritage Portal says this striking geographic feature of the city for some reason often gets overlooked, as do the three gorgeous roads that run up their sides – Sylvia Pass, Munro Drive and Stewart Drive. She reflects on the history and the lore, and how the ridges were tackled […]

South Africa’s legendary playground Sun City is due to undergo a dramatic rejuvenation project worth R800 million rand over the course of 2016. According to a media release from Pilanesberg National Park, which lies next to the iconic resort, Sun City will offer new food options including a micro-brewery themed gastro pub, as well as a “raft […]

Travellers to South Africa have been confused by headlines claiming that the law requiring minors to travel with an Unabridged Birth Certificate (UBC) had been “scrapped”. The law has not yet been scrapped… but Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom said in a statement today that his department is in “intense discussions” with Home Affairs to implement […]

You could call it a Johannesburg hat trick. The latest travel pages of the British Guardian newspaper have posted a trio of major articles about the City of Gold, including 1) some fantastic readers’ pictures of the city shared on Instagram, 2) the paper’s own alternative guide and 3) some insightful readers’ tips. Here’s a taste of the […]

If anyone in Britain has not heard about how cheap South Africa is for a holiday, the Spectator has published an article reminding them that “There may never be a better (or cheaper) time to visit South Africa”, adding that “Jacob Zuma’s economic mismanagement has a benefit for tourists: it’s as if a whole country […]

Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Director General Mkuseli Apleni said in a statement yesterday that the DHA is on track with the implementation of those Cabinet concessions on immigration rules which were announced in October 2015. These include an extension of the expiry date of the Parental Consent Affidavit, and the future roll-out of South African passports […]

Lots of us have it, a kind of nostalgia-memory about home triggered by the littlest thing. We’ll be somewhere abroad and suddenly see, hear, smell something that reminds us of South Africa. Even New Yorker Sean Evans still gets it after spending only two weeks in the country. In an article in Conde Nast Traveler […]

It’s hard to believe, but there have been 25 million people up Table Mountain on the cable car, and the 25 millionth guests were surprised by cheers on Tuesday when they got off the cable car. Watch the lucky couple arrive on top of the mountain: The two suddenly famous customers were Bafana Sibanyoni and his […]

South African Airways will stop flying between Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi, a route that was opened in March 2015. The Minister of Finance said in a statement on the weekend he had granted approval for SAA to cease operating the route, which has not performed as expected. SAA’s interventions to improve the financial performance on this route […]

A prestigious new list of the top places in the world to see in 2016 starts off with the Cape Winelands, which,  as it happens, have also just featured for all the great food and wine you get on the so-called “gourmet trail”. The highly esteemed Robb Report says in its Top 21 Destinations for 2016, “South Africa’s perennially picturesque […]

Muizenberg is the little place that could. So many times over the past decades people have believed that the  beach village way on the other side of Cape Town, the surfer’s corner, one of the oldest resorts in the country, might be on the rise. Well, now it finally seems to be coming true. Countless cars and buses used to […]

Cape Town-based journalist Sarah Khan recently embarked on a week-long road trip through Namibia with three other women, and wrote about the experience for The New York Times. Along the way she learnt 10 (and a half) lessons. Lesson 1. The Namibian sun is every bit as potent as you’ve heard. 2. As soon as […]

In February the low-cost African airline fastjet will be expanding what is expected to be a growing list of flights around Africa, when it flies two new routes from Zimbabwe to Johannesburg. Johannesburg is already a destination for fastjet from Dar es Salaam and will be the first international destination for fastjet Zimbabwe, according to recent news reports. […]

The luxurious boutique hotel Ellerman House, overlooking Bantry Bay in Cape Town, has joined 49 illustrious other hotels around the world in the latest “50 Greatest Hotels” named by the British Telegraph newspaper. The three other hotels in sub-Saharan Africa that made the list were designed, owned or managed by South Africans. They are Wilderness Safaris’ North Island […]

South African Airways is in dire straits. According to an internal memorandum of 6 November 2015 made public by the media last month, SAA is technically insolvent and thus guilty of reckless trading. It is therefore legally obliged under the Companies Act to file for either liquidation or business rescue. On 24 December, Citigroup withdrew […]