Garden Route

Named for the region's year-round green vegetation — a rarity in semi-arid South Africa — the Garden Route is the country's most popular self-drive touring route and one of the world's great coastal journeys. The route passes through a succession of highlights: Knysna, a picturesque town built around a tidal lagoon guarded by dramatic sandstone headlands; Plettenberg Bay, an upmarket beach resort where southern right whales and dolphins are regularly spotted from the shore; the Tsitsikamma section of the Garden Route National Park, where ancient Afromontane forest meets rugged coastline at the famous Storms River Mouth suspension bridge; and Wilderness, a lakeland area of exceptional birding and canoeing. Activities along the Garden Route range from gentle to adrenaline-fuelled: canopy tours through indigenous forest, bungee jumping from the 216-metre Bloukrans Bridge (the world's highest commercial bridge bungee), whale and dolphin boat trips, shark cage diving at Mossel Bay, hiking the multi-day Otter Trail, and oyster tasting in Knysna. The Cango Caves near Oudtshoorn, the ostrich farms of the Klein Karoo, and the Robberg Nature Reserve's dramatic peninsula walk add inland and natural-history dimensions. The Garden Route is typically driven in 4-7 days and combines seamlessly with Cape Town to the west and the Eastern Cape's malaria-free game reserves to the east.