South Africa

We did 16 days in S. Africa. Our trip was put together by Africa Answers and was flawless. We flew into Cape Town, then left for 2 nights to do the wine area of Stellenbosch, then went for 2 nights in Grootbos (can't recommend this place highly enough, magical), then 4 nights Cape Town, then we flew to Kapama for 3 days of safari, then we flew to Vic Falls in Zimababwe. All our accomodations were comfortable. The tour operator on the ground was Thompson, they also run Wilderness Safari's. Very good tour company. Great people and always prompt to pick us up. We chose not to drive ourselves.
If you have more questions feel free to ask. I don't know your budget. Our trip was about $5,000 pp.

Thank you. I will contact them.

I have not visited South Africa , and cannot offer any advice , but this fine documentary from 1980 provides some wonderful insight about it . https://youtu.be/LRwtABg21YA and if you wish to pursue things further , This 1996 BBC film , " The Life and Legend of Cecil Rhodes " ( eight episodes ) is nothing short of spectacular https://youtu.be/5wVadAzGg48

I just recently returned from a 3 week trip in South Africa, mostly around Cape Town and a side trip to Kruger National Park. Did it all by car and found it easy enough to get around on my own. There's so much to do just around Cape Town! Table Mountain for hiking, Robben Island for history, lots of markets to visit (Hout's Bay was my favorite), Camp's Bay & Clifton for beach days, doing a township tour for culture. You can take a trip to Cape Hope where you can see the penguin colony at Boulder's Beach. There are also wild ostrich, zebras, and baboons roaming about in that area by the cape.

If you like wine, South Africa has some fantastic wines. diveloonie mentioned the Stellenbosch wine region, which has a lot of good wineries but I preferred the neighboring Franschhoek wine region. The town is smaller and more quaint than the big university town of Stellenbosch and has somewhat of a French feel to it as it was settled by the French huguenots back in the day. We spent a day touring the wineries on the wine tram/bus: http://winetram.co.za/. You can also go wine tasting in Cape Town in Constantia (in the southern suburbs), where a lot of locals like to go (Beau Constantia, Groot Constantia, and Eagle's Nest are all great).

Since you'll be there in September, it'll be the whale watching season. Best place to see them from land is in Hermanus, where they come very close to shore. I was there in October and we saw several, some as close as 100 feet from the rocks! I believe you can do whale watching (and even great white shark watching) tours from there, and it's only 1.5 hours drive from Cape Town (the scenic coastal drive there is amazing).

For the Kruger, I flew into Johannesburg and rented a car and drove to the park, stopping at Blyde River Canyon along the way. You can also fly directly into the park at Skukuza or into nearby Nelspruit if you don't want to do the drive from Johannesburg. Doing a self-drive safari was easy enough, the road system in the park is similar to a US national park in terms of being well signed and are clearly marked, and are paved or well-groomed dirt roads. It was easy enough finding the animals, they're just roaming about everywhere (saw all of the Big 5 on the first day alone). Since driving isn't allowed at night, you can also organize a night or sunset drive with the park rangers which I highly recommend. If you prefer having a tour company organizing everything, I'd check out Intrepid Travels (they do trips to Kruger as well as around South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho): https://www.intrepidtravel.com/us/south-africa

South Africa is wonderful, I'm sure you'll have an amazing time whether you do it on your own or go with a tour!

You might like to look at this trip with Bench Africa. Change currency quote to USD at bottom of page.

https://www.benchafrica.com/experiences/highlights-of-southern-africa/

We did this tour in September of 2016. It was marvelous. It was the perfect time to see the wildlife in Kruger Nat Park, and we managed to see the Big Five! We were also able to add on a 3 day extension to Victoria Falls and a stopover in Dubai for two days on the way back. Airfare is included, and we stayed at great hotels that we would never be able to afford on our own.

https://www.indus.travel/tour/super-south-africa/

I did a tour with O.A.T. that was S. Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. Fine tour, tons of animals. Also did the post trip to Cape Town. Personally did not get to the pre-trip but others said it was amazing.

My husband and I did a safari with Neil Heron of Bearded Heron safaris in October in South Africa in Kruger National Park. We absolutely loved it. There were 2 other couples with us that we had not not previously met. Neil is a wealth of information and is an expert on animal behavior. Neil takes a cook along and all meals were fantastic. Highly recommend.

If you're in Cape Town, I heartily recommend a trip to wine country. Stellenbosch has the wineries, and being a university town it has all the trappings there too (galleries, coffee shops). This is a good place to see what others have said.