Please upgrade your web browserYou’re using a browser that we don’t support. To get the best experience using our site, we recommend you upgrade to a newer browser – please see our supported browsers list.
Cathay BusinessHelp and support
  • Sign in / uponeworld
    Please upgrade your web browserYou’re using a browser that we don’t support. To get the best experience using our site, we recommend you upgrade to a newer browser – please see our supported browsers list.
    Cathay Pacific
    4 ways to experience the best of Southern Africa
    Southern Africa is a region of diverse attractions. Use bustling Johannesburg and scenic Cape Town as your jumping off points to explore the region’s best landscapes, museums and culture
    Person biking down a beautiful cliffside highway
    Credit: DNA Photographers
    Find the best fares to
    Africa
    Blue skies and a beach surrounded by greenery
    Aerial shot of a cliffside highway

    Cape Town

    City of natural beauty

    It’s easy to fall in love with Cape Town, a city surrounding a mountainous reserve that curls into the Atlantic. The oldest winemaking region in the New World, Cape Town’s history goes back to 1652, when vines were planted in the Company’s Garden – still the city’s green lung.

    Cape Town’s icon is the flat-topped Table Mountain . Head up Signal Hill at night and you’ll see the city lights strung like a bejewelled necklace along the base of the range’s striking form. For a more close-up look at nature, picnic beside a gurgling stream at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens , a showcase of the world’s richest collection of flora. Its terraced lawns blend seamlessly into the indigenous forests that carpet the surrounding slopes.

    There’s wildlife here, too. Drive along Chapman’s Peak Drive , a coastal road carved into perpendicular cliffs, to Cape Point, Africa’s most southwesterly location, and stop to watch baboons gambolling on the side of the road.

    But Cape Town is more than a nature spot. Its reputation as Africa’s art hub is captured in the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa , the first and largest repository for the continent’s contemporary work. Housed in a repurposed grain silo, the building alone is worth a visit. And for a bit of history, Robben Island  offers tours of the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years.

    Woman walking past portrait

    Credit: Rajesh Jantilal / AFP

    Group of peole fathering on picnic tables

    Credit: RosaIreneBetancourt 10 / Alamy Stock Photo / Argusphoto

    Johannesburg

    Big city pulse

    People flock to Cape Town for its beauty, but to feel the pulse of Africa you need to spend a few nights in Jozi, as Johannesburg is known. It is a city of migrants who come to seek their fortune in the City of Gold, bringing with them the flavours from kitchens across sub-Saharan Africa. This, then, is the most reliable place to sample authentic pan-African cuisine, from the sophisticated Manna Epicure , helmed by Burundian-born chef Coco Reinardz, to the virtually all-vegan delights served family-style by chef Sanza Sandile in his Yeoville Dinner Club .

    It’s also the best place to come to grips with South Africa’s past: the Apartheid Museum  is edifying, moving and inspiring, documenting as it does the people’s liberation from oppressive rule. Or take a step way back into our collective past at the Origins Museum or the Cradle of Humankind, an area about 45 minutes from the city where scientists keep unearthing clues, the most recent being a hominid skeleton thought to be about 3.67 million years old. To really get to know the city, join the locals at one of the pavement tables in chi-chi Parkhurst, explore the bars along grungier Melville’s 4th Avenue, or – a personal favourite – spend the evening on pedestrianised Fox Street in downtown Maboneng. Because in the City of Gold, the people are the pulse.

    Couple watching an elephant in a field

    Credit: Peter & Beverly Pickford Wildlife Photography

    Men on a riverboat at sunset

    Credit: 2630ben / Getty Images

    Botswana

    Safari Hotspot

    Botswana has long been known as the best safari destination in Southern Africa, and its glittering jewel is the Okavango Delta . A 15,000-square kilometre alluvial fan of river water that drains away into the Kalahari desert, the Okavango Delta is a miracle of nature: a wonderland of papyrus-fringed channels and lagoons, with clouds reflected on the mirrored waters. Its lush islands support a great diversity of species: 1,061 plants, 89 fish, 64 reptiles and 130 mammals. These include elephants, wildebeest, giraffes, big cats and rhinos. But for many it is the birds – 482 species of them – that provide the best eye candy.

    Accessed primarily by light aircraft from Maun, the remoteness of the delta is another reason it’s seen as Africa’s prime wilderness area. The country tries to keep tourist numbers low while offering high-priced safaris for those who can afford it – this means experiences tend to be ultra-luxe.

    Wilderness Safari has the largest selection of camps, and its flagship Mombo Camp  is the most luxurious in the delta, featuring spacious tented villas facing the floodplains. A few new good-value options have opened recently, including Sable Alley in nearby Khwai Private Reserve. This stylish lodge is one of only three in the vast 2,000-square-kilometre reserve, ensuring seclusion amid spectacular wildlife.

    People climbing up a steep sandune with a blue sky backdrop

    Credit: Sbedaux / Getty Images

    Namibia

    Spiritual Space

    One of the least densely populated countries in the world, Namibia features painterly landscapes that are not only extraordinary in their raw beauty, but – outside of relatively busy Sossusvlei  – offer the luxury of experiencing much of it alone.

    The country is named after the coastal Namib, believed to be the world’s oldest desert, dating back an estimated 55 million years. Certainly it is the most beautiful. After the rains, enormous gravel plains turn pale green and then dry to gold, backdropped by copper-coloured dunes, or lilac hillocks and black rock. And while the Namib might appear arid, it’s filled with life, from the desert-adapted oryx, which is able to cool its blood before it reaches the brain, to the Tenebrionid beetle, which stands on its head at dawn to capture the morning fog.

    Meanwhile, the Kaokoveld Desert’s landscape is defined by sculptural massifs. Here, you can track desert-adapted rhinos and elephants, best done while staying at Mowani Mountain Camp , or seek out giraffes at Hoanib Valley Camp.

    The country is best experienced on a looping road trip. Head north to Etosha for safari or Caprivi for birding, then southwest through Koakoveld and Erongo before stopping in the coastal town of Swakopmund for a few days’ cool respite. Then it’s the last loop south, travelling through the awe-inspiring Namib-Naukluft National Park . It requires a fair amount of driving on rutted roads, but don’t let this put you off. Travelling through this vastness, dwarfed by its wild grandeur, you gain perspective, the kind that comes on a journey that touches the spirit.

     

    More inspiration

    Find the best fares to
    Africa
    Feedback
    Back to top
    Feedback
    We're sorry. We've encountered a system error and are unable to process your request. Please try again later.
    We're sorry. We've encountered a system error and are unable to process your request. Please try again later.
    Thank you
    Your feedback will help us improve our website experience.
    If you have questions that require a response, please contact us for assistance.