Originally posted by: dullard
I've only been to South Africa, but it was a great trip. Cape Town was great. Skip Johannesburg/Pretoria. I'll likely go back to South Africa in a month and I'm thinking of a day trip to Morroco in late Sept / early Oct. I guess if you accept a plane refueling but not leaving the plane, I've been in Senegal too.
Victoria Falls in the Zimbabwe/Zambia border is worth going to if you are in the region. I can't say much about Kenya since I don't know anyone who has been there.
To get you interested, here are some nature things that I saw (All photos are from Cape Town which is well worth visiting):
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Me with penguins, you can swim with them but they tend to bite.
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Me, petting a cheetah.
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What feels like the end of the earth, birds and baboons in that photo. The baboons are hard to see though in that photo, but they will come right up to you.
I've been to SA too (and been on Boulders Beach with the penguins!) and would recommend it highly. We had family as tour guides but with some exceptions in parts of Cape Town would have felt fine as a normal tourist.
Driving along the ocean on the peninsula, there are some absolutely unbelievable views and quaint, its-hard-to-believe-it's-Africa towns like Fish Hoek and Simonstown. Near the
penguin beach is where they filmed the Shark Week special where the sharks jump out of the water. Cape Point park is also a great tourist stop, as southernmost point on the continent.
There's also some wonderful
wine country to see; many wineries very worth the day trip from Cape Town, in and around Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek. My South African sister-in-law's wedding was at
Boschendal.
The second half of our trip was a 5-day photo safari at
Kapama game reserve, which
abuts the Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest and healthiest nature preserves. We stayed in excellent accommodations that felt like we were very close to the wilderness (but still in top comfort!), were treated like honored guests and best of all had 3 long driving sessions each day getting excellent, often close exposure to each member of the
Big 5, all still very wild.
SA was my only experience in Africa, but I have to say I'd go back in a heartbeat. The only downer was the total travel time, because DAMN it's far away. Total flight time, gate to gate, from St. Louis MO -> Cape Town was about 26 hours. STL->ATL->JNB->CPT. Bring a book
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