A country · 247 places · 9 regions
South Africa, all of it.
247 curated places across 9 regions — photographed, mapped, and noted with the season each is best in.
The 4 biggest regions — Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape — read below as chapters, with 5 more waiting past them.
Chapter I · Western Cape · 83 places
Western Cape
The flat-topped sandstone massif rising above Cape Town is one of the world's most recognisable skylines. Its cable car ascent and the Platteklip Gorge hiking route both reward with panoramic views stretching from the Cape Peninsula to the Hottentots Holland mountains. Photographers prize the blue-hour light on the face of the mountain from Signal Hill and the Boulders Beach road.
via Wikimedia CommonsChapter II · Gauteng · 42 places
Gauteng
Soweto is the sprawling township southwest of Johannesburg that became synonymous with the anti-apartheid struggle, most notably through the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Vilakazi Street is the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize laureates — Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. The Hector Pieterson Museum documents the uprising, and the Orlando Towers cooling chimneys serve as a graphic landmark of the township's industrial heritage.
✦ May to September · $
Chapter III · KwaZulu-Natal · 39 places
KwaZulu-Natal
The Drakensberg escarpment forms the highest mountain range in southern Africa, its basalt peaks reaching 3,482 metres at Thabana Ntlenyana on the Lesotho border. The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park protects thousands of San rock art sites alongside alpine grasslands and endemic species. Dramatic cliff faces such as the Amphitheatre in the Royal Natal section offer some of the continent's most spectacular mountain photography.
via Wikimedia CommonsChapter IV · Eastern Cape · 18 places
Eastern Cape
Addo Elephant National Park near Port Elizabeth holds the world's highest density of African elephants, with a population exceeding 600 individuals across its malaria-free reserve. The park's dense Eastern Cape thicket vegetation makes wildlife watching at waterholes particularly productive, and the park also harbours lion, black rhino, buffalo, and spotted hyena. An offshore marine section protects great white sharks and breeding colonies of Cape gannets.
✦ May to September · $$
Regions of South Africa
Every place in South Africa
247 places, one country.
Table Mountain
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ September to April · $$
Boulders Beach
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ October to February · $
Cape Point
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ September to April · $$
Chapman's Peak
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ September to April · $
Kruger National Park
Mpumalanga, South Africa
✦ June to September · $$
Blyde River Canyon
Mpumalanga, South Africa
✦ April to September · $$
Drakensberg
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
✦ March to May · $$
Garden Route National Park
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ October to April · $$
Knysna
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ October to April · $$
Wilderness, Western Cape
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ November to March · $$
Addo Elephant National Park
Eastern Cape, South Africa
✦ May to September · $$
Hermanus
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ August to November · $$
Soweto
Gauteng, South Africa
✦ May to September · $
Bo-Kaap
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ September to April · $
Winelands, South Africa
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ February to April · $$$
Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
✦ May to September · $$
Augrabies Falls National Park
Northern Cape, South Africa
✦ March to May · $
Namaqualand
Northern Cape, South Africa
✦ August to September · $
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Northern Cape, South Africa
✦ March to May for mild temperatures and good predator activity · $$
Tsitsikamma National Park
Eastern Cape, South Africa
✦ October to April for warm, drier hiking weather · $$
Stellenbosch
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ February to April for harvest season and settled weather · $$
Franschhoek
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ November to April for summer dining and vineyard scenery · $$$
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
Western Cape, South Africa
✦ September to November for spring blooms · $
Golden Gate Highlands National Park
Free State, South Africa
✦ March to May for clear autumn light and mild days · $