South Africa & Victoria Falls Itinerary Day 1

South Africa & Victoria Falls
Itinerary

In 2012 we had the pleasure of travelling with our good friends and neighbors Ted & Dianne Reed for three weeks to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia.  We had each “won” a six-night Photo Safari at Zulu Nyala Game Preserve in South Africa, so we planned a three-week trip because there was so much we wanted to see and do.  We kept careful notes of our itinerary and will post it in segments here to share it with friends, family and those of you who might want to follow in our footsteps. 

We stayed our first two days in Johannesburg to see the top sights and to recover from jet lag from our flight.  We also wanted to see Victoria Falls, so made that side trip; we found three nights was just about enough time to see the falls.  We were charmed by Cape Town, where we stayed six nights, and wish we had planned more time to explore the winelands around Stellenbosch, which we only visited on a day trip.  

Definitely plan your trip several months in advance; we booked our flights and made hotel reservations in April for a late August trip.  If you can use frequent flyer miles for some of the flights, I’m sure you’d have to book even further in advance.  Flying in and out of Johannesburg can’t be avoided; it is  the South African Airlines hub and you can’t get anywhere in the country without flying through Johannesburg.  

It was a fabulous journey that we enjoyed immensely, and we know you will too! 



Protea at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden

Saturday, August 25

6 am Drive to JFK Airport Terminal 4

Parking:   $15.95 per day Cost for 19 day stay: $299.20

11:15 am South African Airlines (SAA) flight #204 Depart New York JKF

There’s a van service to JFK as well, but for four persons, it was cheaper to drive ourselves and park at JFK Long Term Parking.  The only direct flights to Johannesburg I found were from JFK, though I thought that there might be flights from Dulles as well. The direct flights were long though not bad in terms of suffering from jet lag because we were able to sleep on both the outbound and return flights.