Attractions
This category includes posts about featured and new attractions throughout South Africa as well as editors’ reviews of popular towns and holiday resorts. Need more info? Visit SA-Venues.com for comprehensive information about all our towns and South Africa’s Attractions.
A Guide to the Major Lakes of South Africa – including Some You Won’t Know
When one thinks of South Africa one imagines the vast plains of the bushveld, the vines of the Cape Winelands, wave-washed towns and Table Mountain. Some visitors come for the country’s deserts. Major lakes of South Africa rarely spring to mind.
But South Africa has lakes. One just has to know where to find them.
A lake is a large body of water localised in a basin or occupying a land depression that is surrounded by land.
Generally speaking: a lake is a lot larger than a pond. Most lakes are freshwater, but being salty doesn’t disqualify a body of water from being called a lake. One...
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Creighton’s Aloe Festival – A Midlands Event not to be missed
During the month of July the little village of Creighton in the Natal Midlands comes to life as it hosts the annual Aloe Festival. The festival takes place over the weekend of July 6th to 8th and there are a number of activities on offer; steam train rides, hot air ballooning, trail runs and mountain bike rides...
A trail run is the first event on the festival calendar. Starting at 17h30 from Myddelton Farm on Friday, July 6th, this 6.5km run (with a shorter loop for walkers, children and dogs!) promises to be a great start to the weekend. The race fee includes entry to the cheese and w...
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Everything You Need to Know to See the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve Properly
See the Big 5 closer to Durban than you think ...
The Hluhluwe iMfolozi (shla-shloo-wee-om-fa-low-zee - it’s a mouthful but you’ll get used to it) combines two reserves of unmistakably different character. As if to reinforce this idea, there’s a public road dividing the two.
Three rivers flow permanently through the park. Two - the Black and White Imfolozi s - etch their way through a series of valleys in the southern section leaving rich riverine vegetation to accompany drier woodland, grassy plains and open savannah for spotting wildlife.
Dissecting the Hluhluwe section is the Hlu...
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7 Alternative Things to Do in South Africa
With rumours rife that South Africa could soon get rid of its stifling child visa rules, and the creation of a direct flight between Durban and London, things for tourists are looking peachy.
Alternative South Africa is very much alive and well thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of its people, and the recent push for tourism by the government.
But not everyone wants to follow the well-worn tourist route when they look for things to do in South Africa...
Alternative South Africa has plenty to offer, if you know where to to find it - tours through neighbourhoods you didn’t even know exist...
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Everything you Need to Know to See the Addo Elephant Park Properly
South Africa’s third-largest wildlife reserve, Addo Elephant Park stretches from the mountains of the Karoo across the fynbos and forest-clad Sundays River Valley all the way to the biggest dune fields in the country on the coastline at Woody Cape.
The park is not only about elephants, although if it’s elephants you’ve come to see then you’re in the right place
It’s also hugely ecologically diverse. And you’ll see plenty of other game - black rhinos, zebras, Cape buffaloes, spotted hyenas, birds galore, and even a group of black-maned Kalahari lions, considered the closest thing to the origina...
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The 15 Most Picturesque Places to Visit in the Karoo
The Karoo is vast and places to visit in the Karoo are myriad.
Divided into the Succulent, Nama, Klein and Grassy Karoo it straddles most of South Africa’s inner country, hogging the west coast, sprawling as far east as Cradock and Smithfield, extending northwards as far as Putsonderwater, and encroaching south on the Western Cape towns of Barrydale, Oudtshoorn and Robertson.
Picturesque places to visit in the Karoo, some would argue, depend on the eye of the beholder, but we think you’ll agree that none of these is worth passing over.
The 15 most picturesque places to visit in the Karoo
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10 of the Coolest Artisanal Spots and Places to Stay in the Riebeek Valley
Once the N7 completes its (relentless) upgrades, the already short trip from Cape Town to the Riebeek Valley will become a cinch - what takes just over an hour now could easily become as effortless as under an hour’s drive.
The uncontested capital of the Swartland, the Riebeek Valley is already a popular weekend haunt not only because it’s so close to the Mother City, but because there is so much to offer the visitor.
The tourist show-town of Riebeek Kasteel has a ‘high street’ and little ‘village’ awash with elegant accommodation, boutique-style shops and foodie havens, bakeries and r...
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These 3 South African Decorative Arts are Now Famous
These 3 South African Decorative Arts, practised Only in South Africa, are Now Famous ~ Aside from San Rock Art, which is enjoying a resurgence since South Africa became such a hot tourist destination, many indigenous South African decorative arts have been lost as a result of the suppression of rural culture by former apartheid policies.
But more recently South Africa’s born-free generation - people like Laduma Ngxokolo with his knitwear designs based on Xhosa beadwork - have given South African decorative art a rejuvenation, placing it firmly at the forefront of innovative art.
“There is...
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Everything You Need to Know to See the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Properly
iSimangaliso Wetland Park is a vast reserve on the extreme north end of South Africa’s east coast, known also as the Elephant Coast. It protects over 220 km of pristine coastline with a range of wild and magnificent beaches to enjoy (minus the crowds and beach umbrellas).
Where else can you see game in the morning (rhino, giraffe, buck, elephant), snorkel in the sea in the afternoon, and see hippos at night?
Watch this ....
Considered the largest natural World Heritage Site on the planet, it stretches from the St Lucia Estuary in the south up to the border with Mozambique. It’s also...
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Everything You Need to Know to See the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park Properly
The uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park protects a mountain wonderland; a chain of craggy, ancient fold mountains made up of towering Basalt peaks, interminable rolling gorges and valleys, towering cliffs and sandstone caves.
Included in the World Heritage Site is the jagged, green sweep of the Amphitheatre, easily one of the most extraordinary cliff faces on earth.
The Amphitheatre’s recognisable, almost flat, plateau extends wall-like for 5 km as it looms over the Drakensberg National Park like a sentinel. A hike to the top, whilst one of the most exciting things to do in the uKhahlamba Drakensber...
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Everything You Need to Know to See the Cradle of Humankind Properly
The Cradle of Humankind South Africa gives a first-hand account of mankind’s roots.
Your ancestry starts right here. You’re home.
Watch this ...
Well over 2 million years ago when the rocky outcrops and highveld grasslands just outside Johannesburg were ranged by huge animals, a young child was snatched up by an eagle and fell into a series of limestone caves.
Years later, in 1924, Raymond Dart was to discover the skull in the Taung quarry, which became known as the Taung Child (you can see it today on the Taung Heritage Route in the North West province).
The child’s skull i...
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15 Inland South African Villages That are on Everyone’s Travel List
What makes a village a village? And where will you find South African villages?
A village, by definition, is slightly smaller than a town, but bigger than a hamlet. Often people call them towns anyway as the differences between them are so slight.
Generally speaking a village should have a church, possibly a post office. But not terribly much more. Each village usually has at least one character, more than willing to chat on a street corner.
South African villages are a quintessential experience of life in the country.
They lie scattered across South Africa, lived in by all kinds o...
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10 Dropdead Gorgeous Places to Visit on the East Coast of South Africa
The East Coast of South Africa is vast.
So vast that it’s not known as the ‘East Coast’, the way the West Coast is known as the ‘West Coast’ - probably because the Eastern Cape makes up such a large portion of it, leading to confusion.
But also because there are so many different tourist coasts along its length.
The East Coast South Africa includes: the Sunshine Coast, the Wild Coast, the Hibiscus Coast, Dolphin Coast and the Elephant Coast!
The East Coast of South Africa stretches from Port Elizabeth, past East London Accommodation - the city named after the east of London (it res...
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The Best Hiking Trails in the Eastern Cape
South Africa’s Eastern Cape has some of the best hiking trails in the country. We struggled to narrow down our choice but you can choose from a longer list of Eastern Cape hiking trails here.
Our selection below includes mostly multi-day hiking trails Eastern Cape, but we’ve made sure to add one or two day hikes for those with neither the time, nor the fitness (some of the longer trails have shorter versions) to cope with strenuous trails.
South Africa’s Eastern Cape is Nelson Mandela’s homeland with some of the most varied landscape in the country. It’s slower than Gauteng and the Western C...
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10 Unexplored Places in South Africa that will Make You Want to Visit
South Africa is one of the most visited places in Africa, alongside countries like Egypt and Morocco. But most every visitor does the highlights: Kruger National Park, V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, the Winelands, Johannesburg, the Garden Route and Robben Island.
It’s the brave and intrepid, those unafraid of surprises and adventure, who take on the unexamined; the untold parts of a country.
If you’re one of those who enjoys an experience beyond the conventional, then these unexplored places in South Africa are just as beautiful as the country’s most visited parts.
The advantage bei...
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