Yes, South Africa is one of the easiest African countries to backpack independently, provided you rely on Uber, shuttles and the occasional hire car instead of local minibus taxis.
English is spoken everywhere, and dorm beds in
Cape Town, along the
Garden Route and in
Durban cost R250 to R450 (US$14 to 25). Most hostels will also book Kruger tours and shuttle seats for you. A backpacker budget comes to about R630 to R1,080 (US$35 to 60) a day. The main habit to learn is urban safety: take Uber after dark, keep your phone out of sight on the street, and plan your arrivals so you’re never walking around with luggage at night.
Most travelers need 2 to 3 weeks for South Africa. Fourteen days covers the Cape or the safari northeast well, and 21 days lets you do both without rushing.
A single week works for
Cape Town,
Stellenbosch and
Hermanus, since none are more than 2 hours apart. With two weeks, add
Kruger National Park (at least 3 nights) plus the Panorama Route or the Drakensberg. Three weeks fits the
Garden Route as well, which needs 5 to 6 days from Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay. Cape Town to Johannesburg takes 2 hours by air or 18 to 20 hours by bus, so fly the long jumps.
Yes, you can get around South Africa without a car, but it’s slower and keeps you on the main corridors, so trips to Kruger and the Drakensberg usually mean joining a tour.
Intercape coaches run from
Cape Town to
Knysna and
Plettenberg Bay in 7 to 8 hours for R350 to R650, and from Johannesburg to
Durban in 8 to 9 hours. FlySafair and Airlink connect Cape Town and Johannesburg in 2 hours, for R900 to R2,000 if booked a few weeks ahead. In cities, use Uber and Cape Town’s MyCiTi buses. A 3- to 4-day
Kruger tour from Johannesburg is the standard car-free safari.
The must-visits in South Africa are
Cape Town with Table Mountain and Robben Island,
Kruger National Park, the
Garden Route and Johannesburg’s
Apartheid Museum.
Give Cape Town 3 to 4 nights so you have a backup day if wind closes the cableway. In Kruger, sleep inside the park for at least 3 nights in rest camps such as Skukuza or Lower Sabie. On the Garden Route, prioritize Wilderness, Knysna, Robberg Nature Reserve and Storms River Mouth over 4 to 5 days. The Apartheid Museum needs about 3 hours. If you can, add 2 nights in the
Drakensberg for the Tugela Gorge hike, about 5 hours’ drive from Durban.
If time is short in South Africa, skip
Gqeberha,
Gold Reef City Theme Park and the remote
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, and keep
Durban to one night.
Gqeberha mostly works as an airport at the eastern end of the Garden Route, and George airport serves the best stretch just as well. Gold Reef City is a standard theme park, so spend those hours at the Apartheid Museum next door. Kgalagadi is superb, but it’s 11 to 12 hours’ drive from Cape Town and needs 5 days or more to be worth the trip. If you’re already visiting Kruger, you can also drop
Pilanesberg National Park.
Yes, our itinerary-planner does exactly that. Set your trip length in days, give your interests and travel style, optionally give start- and end location and/or some mandatory stops you would like to include and the itinerary planner creates your personalized routes for South Africa in seconds. Try it out!
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