Garden Route, South Africa

Of all of our road trips so far, South Africa’s Garden Route wins our award for Best Road Trip Vacation and highly recommend it to our loyal readers The malaria free scenic drive has so much to offer that even in 10 days, we couldn’t fit it all in. We picked up a very small tent claiming to be for “2 Adults” that would make a great light weight backpacking tent for a 12 year old! It was pretty funny comparing our little tent next to the incredible multi-room tents that we saw being used. Having our rental car and tent allowed us the freedom to stay inside many of the National Parks in some of the most beautiful campsites we’ve seen; our favorite being Stormsriver. It has tent spots right on the ocean with access to multiple hikes, swimming and funny mini marmot looking animals called Dassies.

We used our rental car for our own self-drive safari in the Addo Elephant National Park, where there are over 400 elephants! It was so exciting to be our own guides, stopping for as long or little as we wanted. We felt as though we had learned a lot about tracking from our Botswana safari guide, and managed to see everything from A-ntelopes to Z-ebras including some up close lions that just finished off a porcupine earlier that morning.

Of the numerous activities along the route for the adrenalin junkie, we gave sand-boarding and sand-sledding on the Sunday River’s Dunes a try. Although getting a few winter snowboard runs in was fun, you could get some major speed on the sled and definitely recommend it.

The Cango Caves in Oudstoorn was another attraction we enjoyed. We did the “adventure tour” of the cave which promised for some narrow passage ways, crawling, and getting through obstacles such as the post box and up the chimney but child’s play compared to the birth canal in California’s Santa Cruz.

We celebrated Robin’s birthday with an ostrich braai an ostrich egg breakfast. Then we got up close and personal at an ostrich show farm where the birthday girl had the ride of her life.

The Napa Valley of South Africa sits just outside of Cape Town and the tasting rooms are a dime a dozen in Stellenbosch. A highlight was the wine and chocolate pairing, a cheese and wine pairing, and a tasting room that over looked zebras, wildebeests, springboks, and guinea fowl.