Cape Town, The Garden Route and Addo Elephant Park!

For beauty, adventure, unforgettable memories and somewhere the whole family will love, South Africa is definitely the place to go! And with the exchange rate as it is now stands, it is amazingly affordable too.

We recently had a family adventure in Cape Town and toured the famous Garden Route, ending up in Addo Elephant National Park, which was a highlight.

Cape Town is less than a nine hour flight, and absolutely beautiful. It would be easy to spend a week there and still not tick off everything it has to offer. You need a car to get around as everything is quite spread out and there are plenty of amazing 'must do' day trips. We spent a day driving down to the Cape of Good Hope and doing some short hikes, followed by a visit to a beautiful beach with a fairy penguin colony. On another day we went up Table Mountain in a revolving cable car. We also spent some time in Constantia and Stellenbosch, and ate and drank at some incredible family friendly wineries. Kirstenbosch, the botanical garden, full of rare and exotic plants and flowers, also deserves at least half a day. The Waterfront in central Cape Town, with its bustling restaurants and bars can also take up a full day.

Once we tore ourselves away from Cape Town, we did a fantastically scenic and gorgeous week long trip to Addo Elephant National Park, with stops at Hermanus (on the coast and renowned for its whale watching), Knysna and Plettenberg Bay (which cannot be missed), and finally ended up at Addo.

Addo Elephant Park is a government run national park, and amazing value for money. We stayed in a simple but lovely chalet and spent three days doing self-drive game drives, and spotted everything from meerkats to lions, amongst hundreds of elephants (this park has the highest density of elephants in the world). We spent the final day at some amazing beach sand dunes (also part of Addo National Park) and then flew back to Dubai from Port Elizabeth (via Johannesburg).

I highly recommend this holiday to families - we are going back again next year (I have organised a family reunion with relatives coming from Dubai, Sydney and London!) We will also tack on a nine day trip to Namibia! I can’t wait!