3 days for visiting the Wild Coast

Hello! Me and my wife in our 30's will be visiting SA for 18 days at the end of Oct (so very soon. Yay.) . We arrive in Johannesburg and then will go to Kruger for 6 nights (already booked). We then will spend 3 nights in Johannesburg (booked but can prob change to 2 days if needed). Which leaves 9 nights originally allocated for Cape Town. After doing some googling some of the scenery in the Wild Coast looks too good to pass up.

So i'm thinking of flying from Johannesburg to East London, rent a car and drive to Coffee Bay for 3 nights. We enjoy nature site seeing and mild hiking (4hrs/day max). Then drive back to East london to take flight to Cape town.

Does this plan make sense? Or am I trying to cram too much into it?

Also is it safe to go hiking in the coffe bay area or am I better off joining a group hiking tour.

We thought of skipping Johannesburg and driving all the way down to cape town but I dont think im up for such a long drive. Also not sure about the safety aspect (roads and crime).

Any help would be great. Thanks in advance :)

Kc

A pretty nice hike is Coffee Bay - Wild Lubanzi - Bulungula. An extra day at Bulungula (or more) rather than in Coffee Bay is highly recommended. The area is safe to hike on your own or just hire a guide when there. (Coffee Shack is the best place to stay in Coffee Bay).

Landing in JHB, I wouldn't go back there after Kruger. I'd rather drive to Drakensberg for 2 days and then head to Coffee Bay.

I also like Bulungula very much..one of my favourite places in the country.

Great people and loads of interesting activities to do ,if you want to.....

Im very tempted to do the drive from kruger down the coast to cape town. Ill be completely missing johannesberg but it seems like the days might be better spent along the coast.

Alternativrly im thinking of keeping the same plan and instead of wild coast fly to port elizabeth and do the garden route to cape town for 5 days. Leaving 4 days for cape town.

Feels like garden route will have a lot to see so would be comparable to wild coast. Ill also keep my driving time down.

Thoughts on garden route vs. Wild coast?

Thanks!

They are quite different.....the Wild Coast is,well,a lot ''wilder''.

The Garden Route is much more genteel,though there are plenty of interesting things to see and do there too.Far more tourist infrastructure,easier to move around but in some ways less ''authentic'' (for want of a better word...I know everything is ''authentic'' ;-)It feels less like you are in Africa in a place like Knysna than in Bulungula........

Personally I prefer Drakensberg + Wild Coast to the Garden Route but either option is great. The Garden Route is definitely the more popular of the two options.

Thanks for all the input guys. After looking at the suggestions we've decided on the garden route. It being our first time in SA I think this might be up our alley in terms of planning and coordination.

We're gonna fly from jnb to port elizabeth and take 6 days for the garden route and leave the last 3 days for cape town.

I figure 3 days should be good since we can do the shark diving as part of the garden route portion.

Any suggested itinerary for the garden route or must see places?

Thanks again.

Depends a lot on your interests I guess.

MY favourites would include (these are on or around the Garden Route)....the winelands (eg Stellenbosch..if you like wine)....Oudtshoorn (just north of the route..loads of interesting stuff to do there)......Hermanus or Gansbaii for shark diving,whales etc......Tsitsikamma and Wilderness for walking.You could head up to Addo if you want more safari,but it doesn't compare to Kruger.

Where did you go in the end OP?

Hey there!

We fly out of SA tmmrw. We ended up knocking one day out of Johannesburg and did 5 days garden route and 5 days cape town which seemed just about right.

A quick summary.
-6 days in Kruger area. One of the days we drove out and did the Panorama route which was very scenic.
-2 days Johannesburg. Didnt do too much here. Apartheid museum and drove through Arts on Main (the neighbourhood seemed a bit rough so we chickened out and only drove by. Lol)
5 days garden route - Plettenberg bay, oudsthoorn, hermanus and knysna.
5 days cape town - the usual stuff.

Thank you all for the info and help!!!

All in all it was a great trip aside from an attempted robbery (they couldnt actually get in) late one night at our bnb...
But im told "this is africa" so just had to roll with it.

Great. ..sounds like you did a lot!

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