Escape to the West Coast and the Berg River Region

West Coast Beach

Think West Coast, think sand, heat, sea and little fresh water. And you wouldn't be far off the mark. The West Coast is arid, wild and windswept, but it does have water.

And one of the major sources of water avail­able that makes farm­ing pos­sible, in the arid Sandveld and undu­lat­ing hills of the Swartland, is the Berg River — its source in the Drakenstein Mountains just south of Franschhoek and its mouth at Laaiplek on the Atlantic Ocean.

In the pres­ence of the Berg River (more com­monly known amongst loc­als as the Bergrivier – one word) the towns of the West Coast between Velddrif and Elands Bay and their inland coun­ter­parts – Aurora, Redelingshuys, Goedverwacht, Eendekuil, Piketberg, Porterville and Wittewater — are awash with beau­ti­ful moun­tains, lush vine­yards, wheat fields and pic­tur­esque vil­lages; a com­plete con­trast to the pic­ture one holds of the West Coast and its accom­pa­ny­ing sand­scapes. Continued

Tips for a stress-free 'xmas holiday travel experience

Travel Tips

There is some­thing almost deranged about the fest­ive sea­son. People become gripped by an inex­plic­able mania. Take my aver­age shop­ping exper­i­ence dur­ing Decembers of late where shop­pers hurl them­selves at the shelves in sim­ilar fash­ion to post-Christmas sales.

Are they frightened that the shop will run out of items? Has Woolworths ever run out of tur­keys or mince pies before? As far as I know, they were selling mince pies on spe­cial well into February the fol­low­ing year, so why the fan­at­ical devo­tion to filling the trol­ley as if we're about to be snowed in for the entire sea­son, and then some?

Have you wit­nessed the length of till point queues at this time of year?

Whatever your the­ory for the elves-on-steroids beha­viour of some, it does pay to avoid shop­ping centres com­pletely dur­ing the period, par­tic­u­larly the day before the 'big day'. If you've run out of cus­tard, well, just do without it, or make it your­self. Trust me, the haz­ards of join­ing the rabid throngs far out­weigh the joys of cus­tard on fruit cake. Continued

Shosholoza Meyl — an alternative to air travel?

Shosholoza Meyl

Everyone has a fond memory of tak­ing the train in their child­hood – pil­ing on with mom and dad, the lug­gage (ours were a series of rather dra­matic, bright red suit­cases that included a small, square one for my mother's cos­met­ics), egg and mayo sand­wiches and the wel­come delight of sleep­ing under crisp white sheets as the wheels chugged gently beneath you.

Remarkably, the inter-city train of our youth still exists, in the form of the Shosholoza Meyl, named such after the pop­u­lar South African song about train work­ers. The word 'meyl' refers to a long dis­tance by train. One would think I could have at least sus­pec­ted that this rather obvi­ous fact would prob­ably be the train's biggest chal­lenge. Continued

Escape the Vuvuzela — Your antidote to World Cup Fever

Escape the Vuvuzela

The chance to host a major sports tour­na­ment on a world stage is a won­der­ful oppor­tun­ity for South Africa. The pos­it­ive aspects of World Cup Fever will bring this coun­try a heightened sense of optim­ism, valu­able for­eign income and a pat­ri­otic pride at being the first African nation to stage the FIFA festivities.

That said, some city-based indi­vdu­als are wor­ried about their home town being infec­ted with World Cup Fever. Fears of stress­ful side-effects include increased traffic con­ges­tion, hoo­ligan­ism and of course the end­less caca­phony of the Vuvuzela army. Our simple rem­edy to the poten­tially neg­at­ive effects of World Cup Fever is a dose of the great out­doors in tran­quil, remote and beau­ti­ful parts of South Africa. Extended school hol­i­days give a per­fect oppor­tun­ity to explore a little fur­ther off the beaten track and dis­cover your own anti­dote to city stress ... Continued

New site for visitors to the glorious Garden Route

Garden Route

For vis­it­ors to the Garden Route, the newly redesigned and revamped Garden Route Accommodation site provides a valu­able guide for vis­it­ors, provid­ing all sorts of inform­a­tion to make plan­ning a trip to the Garden Route fun and easy to do.

Know where you are going? Then select your des­tin­a­tion and start plan­ning! Accommodation in the Garden Route is search­able by type (hotels, guests houses, bed & break­fasts or self cater­ing options), from budget to 5 star lux­ury. Once you've found the per­fect place to stay, all you need to do is decide just how to spend your leis­ure time... Continued

Focus on Hogsback — a magical town ideal for weekends away and extended stays

Magical Hogsback

This month we focus our atten­tion on the magical little town of Hogsback in the Eastern Cape, home to numer­ous accom­mplished artists — pot­ters, paint­ers, musi­cians and poets — who have chosen the beauty of Hogsback over the rush of city life. Hogsback offers so much as a week­end des­tin­a­tion or exten­ded hol­i­day stay — think explor­ing the vil­lage, fab­ulous hik­ing trails, moun­tain bik­ing, horse rid­ing, bird watch­ing, and moun­tain climb­ing — these are only a few of the things that draw people to Hogsback time and again. Magical views, peace and tran­quil­ity add to the mix of what makes Hogsback such an appealling getaway ...

View our col­lec­tion of art­icles and fea­tures, view the pho­to­graphs of Hogsback and decide for your­self ... Continued

In South Africa but got to do it in 9 days? Here are the 'must see' spots

Cape Town Aerial

You've hit the shores of our rugged, gor­geous, riddled with con­tra­dic­tions, big on diversity land, and have but 9 days in which to say you've done it all? A tall order at the best of times, but not impossible. South Africa is huge by anyone's stand­ards, with unfor­get­table scenery, and memory-making places to visit, whether it's moun­tains, beaches, deserts or cit­ies you're after.

You will already have heard of the 'big­gies', the 'must do's' when on our soil. And they've been selec­ted because they truly are incred­ible places to visit and sights to see. For those of you who haven't been here EVER, we've tried to squash as many of these into the 9 days as pos­sible (it isn't easy). Whilst you could safely spend a life­time on our shores, and not have to visit the same place twice, these guidelines on what to see when will safely give you a taste of South Africa, a cam­era full of pic­tures, and the urge to return ... Continued

Green Map for Cape Town

Those who live in Cape Town are the envy of most of the coun­try. It is one of the most spec­tac­u­lar set­tings on the planet, although its unique envir­on­ment is also its most fra­gile asset. It lies in the heart of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, the smal­lest and most diverse of the world's six floral king­doms, is one of few cit­ies in the world with a national park within city lim­its, and is home to two world her­it­age sites — Table Mountain National Park and Robben Island.

Now Cape Town has its own green map to illus­trate its nat­ural beauty, and the myriad green, eco and sus­tain­able options avail­able in the city, whilst encour­aging people to live more sus­tain­ably to pro­tect its vul­ner­able envir­on­ment ... Continued

Public Transport in Cape Town

Every day, thou­sands of Capetonian com­muters use pub­lic trans­port to get where they need to be. Squeezing into minibus taxis and train car­riages, it’s a long haul to and from work for many of the Mother City’s cit­izens. Public trans­port offers a cost-effective way of trav­el­ling in our fair city and also allows one to immerse one­self in its day-to-day cul­ture. The bed­rock of trans­port on Cape Town's roads is the minibus taxi. From dawn until well past mid­night, these rugged little 12– to 15-seaters shuttle back and forth along the city's main roads and high­ways. Although the driver often takes a cre­at­ive approach to traffic reg­u­la­tions, weav­ing through traffic and slip­ping into by-roads in their bid to get all pas­sen­gers where they're going as quickly as pos­sible, the taxi can be an inter­est­ing, if some­what exhil­ar­at­ing exper­i­ence. Continued

Family Holidays in South Africa

Family Holidays

Newly launched on SA-Venues.com is our Child-friendly Accommodation sec­tion. Catering spe­cific­ally for fam­il­ies trav­el­ling with chil­dren from birth (age 0–3 months) to teen­agers, the sec­tion fea­tures over 1,200 estab­lish­ments cater­ing for chil­dren, includ­ing fam­ily hotels, game lodges that cater for kids, guest houses, bed and break­fasts, self cater­ing hol­i­day suites and apart­ments that wel­come chil­dren of all ages.

And whilst you are look­ing for that per­fect fam­ily hol­i­day des­tin­a­tion in South Africa, visit the Family-friendly Provinces pages for some great ideas on what to do with the little ones in dif­fer­ent parts of the country.

Port Elizabeth boasts fant­astic beaches, an ocean­arium and snake park at which to enter­tain chil­dren, the Garden Route is a won­der­ful escape for fam­il­ies with chil­dren of all ages, par­tic­u­larly for those chil­dren who can join you on walks through magical forests where the elu­sive knysna loerie serves as part of an enter­tain­ing diver­sion. Continued

In Wake of Storms, U.S. Travelers Look To South Africa As New Vacation Destination

Cape Town, South Africa — After a par­tic­u­larly rough storm sea­son with many tra­di­tional vaca­tion des­tin­a­tions rebuild­ing, Americans are begin­ning to book travel to South Africa.

"South Africa has some of the best and least crowded beaches in the world," says Stefani Searle of SA-Venues.com, a site serving as a dir­ect­ory to vaca­tion options in South Africa. "We've seen a big upswing in interest from Americans in recent months," Searle said.

Visitors enjoy renowned wild­life parks such as Kruger National Park, beau­ti­ful nat­ural scenery, and a stable post-apartheid envir­on­ment. South Africa, long a vaca­tion favor­ite for Europeans, has a very well developed tour­ist industry that offers world class accom­mod­a­tions and an unusu­ally diverse range of nat­ural won­ders and cul­tural activ­it­ies. Continued