I'm in the very early stages of planning a trip for September/October of this year, and I'm trying to nail down how many vacation days I need to ask other travel companions to save. Listed are full, 24-hour days.

Cape Town - 3-4 days (Table Mountain hike, day trip for shark diving)
Namibia - 7-8 days (either a guided tour or self-drive of Etosha NP and Namib-Naukluft NP)
Maun - 2-3 days (either day tours or an overnighter of Okavango Delta)
Victoria Falls - 1 day (as of right now, this is the optional part of the trip; only if timing and costs work out will we try to make it here)
Back to Cape Town or Johannesburg - 1 day, just to fly back home

I have a ton of vacation days, but my travel companions, not so much. Just trying to figure out the bare minimum required to see and do everything mentioned. Thanks.

Feels to me like a lot of travel at the back end. Namibia to Maun to Vic Falls will add a lot of travel time in the last 3-4 days which will add cost and not let you do too much. I don't know if day trips from Maun are feasible and one night in the Delta isn't enough.

I would think about just focussing on Namibia for the extra time and then back to Jo'burg or Cape Towna at the end. I haven't been to Namibia, but it is on my list and I think there would more than enough to fill in the extra few days.

Yea, that's what I figured, in particular with regards to getting to and from Victoria Falls (transit time is the primary reason why it's optional; plus, waterfall-ed out from Iceland). I can fly from Windhoek to Maun with one layover in Johannesburg, total transit time ~7 hours, which is fine. But too many of these short distance flights where layover times are the same as flight times would be taxing.

As far as Maun goes, doing rudimentary searches, there are a variety of trip types into the delta. Just a matter of picking one that best fits our schedule.

Maybe 3 days in Cape Town, 8 days in Namibia, 5 days in Botswana, then back to SA to fly out. Not going to Victoria Falls might add 2-3 days of on-the-ground activity after accounting for transit time.

Totally agree, plus you are burning touring time as well. Also, it's Africa so things don't always run to schedule...

5 days in Botswana would give you four nights - you could get to one or two camps, which would be nice.

I would check on accommodation ASAP as I had trouble last October booking a trip for June / July this year.

Don't underestimate distances in Namibia, it's a huge country.

The roads are mostly really good, certainly by African standards, and there is no traffic to speak of outside Windhoek, but if you are planning to drive around the country you must allow sufficient time.

Johan

Thanks. The few tours I looked into that included both Etosha NP and Namib-Naukluft NP ranged from 6-10 days. I figured setting aside 8 days would give us a good estimate in regards to how many days we would need in Namibia to see both.

Would you recommend going on a tour or renting a car? I enjoy the freedom of having my own car, but going on a tour where I don't have to worry about anything is also appealing. Renting a 4x4 is about $100-$150/day whereas camping tours are about $700-$1000/person. Figured if it was 8 of us, we would need 2 cars, so $2400 + accommodations vs $8000 (both calculations for the higher end of prices).

If it's your first time in Africa I would suggest a tour. Self driving is great but if you have no idea what you are looking at or looking for, then you will miss a lot. A good guide will bring all that to life and open your eyes to things you may not otherwise notice - birds, flora, insects, as well as the big game and other sights. Plus the history is pretty interesting as well.

Thanks for all your help. I'm definitely leaning towards tours where I can.

Last question (hopefully) regarding budget. Do you think $5000 would be a reasonable expectation of how much everything would cost? I'm thinking.....

$1000 for TATL flights
$1000 for intra-Africa flights
$1000 for Namibia tour (meals and accommodations included)
$750 for Okavanga Delta tour (meals and accommodations included)
$500 for 4 nights in Cape Town/Johannesburg (2 people/room)
$750 for meals, possible night(s) in Windhoek/Maun, etc.

I'm overestimating by quite a bit, especially the last two items, but I just want to give myself a nice cushion.

I defer to local experts, and your personal choice of CPT hotels, but back in December it was costing us equivalent of USD 300/night.

CPT Trip Report in my signature below

Thanks, I'll definitely check out the trip report.

Just checked hotels on TripAdvisor in Cape Town for a random week in October, and the prices vary quite a bit. Most are either $150-200/night or $400+/night. I'm not too picky with hotels as long as they're clean. Looks like the former price range is manageable in my case.

In 2012, I did a trip to CPT and JNB, including Kruger. Then in 2015, I did Namibia, Botswana, and Vic Falls, which was one of the best trips I have done.

I thought about driving in Namibia, but being a solo traveler, it didn't make sense. So I did a lot of research and decided to go with Nomad Africa. The tripw as 14 days, starting from Swakopmund, Namibia, and ending in Vic falls. It included 2 night in the Okavango at a fly-in camp. The whole trip was superb, but Etosha and the Okavango delta were the highlights.

Here is the link to the tour I did: https://nomadtours.co.za/this-year/d...rth/#itinerary
They have a camping option, accommodated option, and an accommodated option as a small group that has 12 passengers at most. I did the accommodated small group tour, and I though the prices are very reasonable.

Thanks for the suggestion. There are so many tour companies out there for Southern Africa that it's hard to narrow them down, especially since most of them offer similar itineraries.

Is 500$ for 4 nights in CPT only for the hotel only or meant to also cover everything else during those days? It can be a bit tight if the latter.

I would advise looking at AirBnb apartments as an alternative to hotels, the price can be significantly lower based on how many PAX you are, you can easily find an apartment with 2 bedrooms for the same price of a single hotel room.

The $500 is just for Cape Town hotels; 2 people/room, so essentially $1000/4 nights/room.

In general, I hate dealing with Airbnb because I feel like as the owner of the property has more leverage than the renter (e.g. being able to cancel last minute and causing the renter to scramble to find a place, which has happened before) and hotels are just easier to book/cancel/etc.. I'll look into it though to see if the discount is worth the possible hassle.



After looking at the tour company sooge_sj recommended, I worked up this quick itinerary:

1. SFO to Johannesburg; 1 night
2. Non-stop flight ($125-150) to Victoria Falls to join the tour
3. 14 day tour (reverse direction from the recommendation)
4. Extra night in Swakopmund at the end of the tour to see Namib-Naukluft NP
5. Non-stop flight ($125-150) to Cape Town; 2-3 nights
6. Cape Town to SFO

Trans-Atlantic flights - $1000
Intra-Africa flights - $300
Tour - $1000 (inclusive of accommodations and most meals)
Accommodations in Johannesburg/Swakopmund/Cape Town: $700
Meals and such: $500

Estimated total: $3500, but would budget for $4500 just in case.

I will be REALLY interested to see the final cost breakdown after the event.

Do please report back, for the benefit of the community. Indeed, a Trip Report would be worth reading!