This was a trip in the making for a long time. Africa was my final continent (excluding Antarctica) to be visited. When I first started planning the Africa trip, I had planned on visiting Ghana and Ethiopia. As planning progressed, I realized that those two countries were a tad riskier with flights and were more spread out (it's a 6-hour flight from Accra to Addis Ababa). Infrastructure, in general, was also more lacking there than in Southern Africa. So, I finalized the planning and chose to visit South Africa and Namibia. Follow along below as I share my experiences in Johannesburg's Soweto neighborhood, the vibrant city of Cape Town, the desert and sand dunes of Namibia and a safari in South Africa's iconic Kruger National Park!
From the beginning, I knew flights were going to be a problem. Delta only operates a single daily flight down to Johannesburg, South Africa (aka Joburg, Jozi) from Atlanta, which is one of the longest flights in the world. Not only that, it's almost always full, especially in Delta One business class. I devised some alternatives that I had hoped I wouldn't need to use, which ended up half-true. Intra-Africa flights I assumed would be fairly open, although I was wrong about that completely. I missed the fact that there was a major public holiday in South Africa during my time down there, which just happened to be the few days before and after I was planning on flying between Joburg, Cape Town, and Namibia, meaning flights were packed. Anyways, let's get to it!
You can use the following links to access specific parts quicker:
I: Flights to South Africa, Johannesburg and tour of Soweto.
II: Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula Tour.
III: Namibia: Driving around and the dunes of Sossusvlei.
IV: Back to Cape Town.
V: Safari at Kruger National Park and the flights back to the US.