Let's Go South Africa On a Budget With Coverage of Southern Africa

From the Let's Go series.

If you've got this book in one hand and a plane ticket to South Africa in the other, everyone you meet should be envious. You are in for some adventures that are difficult to describe. They will be mind-numbing, breath-taking, head-scratching, foot-stomping, Zulu-speaking, eye-opening, and, if you aren't careful, run-on-sentence-producing. No matter how many hyperbolic, hyphenated adjectives we try to use, none will adequately prepare you for standing in Kruger National Park watching lions on the morning hunt, bungee jumping over Victoria Falls, SCUBA diving in Lake Malawi, safari-ing in the Kalahari Desert, clubbing in Cape Town, basking on the beautiful beaches of the Indian Ocean, exploring Soweto, or skydiving over the African veld in Namibia. There is very little you cannot do in Southern Africa; it's got something for everyone.

South Africa itself may be thought of as an outdoor adventure paradise, but lions, rhinos and leopards (oh my!) aren't the only highlights of this cultural kaleidoscope. Culturally, this is the land the spawned Nelson Mandela, Charlize Theron, Dave Matthews, J.R.R. Tolkien, and plenty of others in between. The nation is perhaps most noticeable for its diversity, with eleven national languages and citizens of African, European, and Asian ancestry. Above all, South Africa offers the opportunity to experience life in a country that is still struggling to come to grips with a troubled past while finding its footing for a stable future.

Whatever you do, don't be fooled into thinking that Southern Africa ends in South Africa's Northern Province. Adventurous travelers will find that the other nations in the region possess their own thrills and lifestyles independent of South Africa. Swaziland is a nation of incredible natural beauty, elaborate tradition, and cultural vibrancy. Lesotho, a small kingdom that was able to maintain its independence from South Africa because of a ring of sheer mountains, has wonderful opportunities to trek through high passes on ponyback and pick up some great Basotho craftwork.

Namibia is an oft-overlooked but haunting landscape that includes desolate desert, ghost towns, and shipwrecks, as well as big game, rock paintings, and a world of watersports. Botswana's policy of ecotourism has kept the wilderness almost as wild as it can get. While opportunities can be both rich and expensive, plenty of adventure outfitters are game for budget business. Although political conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated in recent years, the spectacular Victoria Falls, which make Niagara look like a leaky faucet, still continue to thunder as they have for hundreds of thousands of years, and the Great Zimbabwe ruins are one of the most surreal archaeological sites on the continent.

Mozambique, while a more difficult country to travel through or across, offers pristine beaches with thriving local economies based around the sea, as well as the magnificent Mozambique Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the north. Finally, Malawi's appeal is centered around its gorgeous inland sea, dotted with sailboats and filled with exotic species of fish; its high plateaus and mountain ranges give the hiker another reason to tour the country.

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