Getting there
Every trip here starts and ends with a journey, and the journey comes out of the holiday.
Six destinations sit on this site and two of them need a long flight, one needs a direct island hop, and three you reach without leaving the country. The hours, the clock change and the transfer at the other end separate them, and all three come out of the holiday before you have done anything. This page puts the six journeys next to each other. Every figure on it is the one already published on that destination's own page.
The journey to each of the six
Read this column before the prices. A trip that needs eight hours in the air and two on the clock is a different shape of holiday from one that needs a ninety minute transfer.
| The trip | The journey from Johannesburg | The clock | The airport and the transfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cape Town and the Winelands | Domestic, and the published bands include the return flights | No change | Airport transfer is forty minutes from the city bowl outside peak, an hour in it |
| Kruger safari | Fly into Skukuza Airport or Kruger Mpumalanga International, or drive the four to five hours | No change | Two airports serve the reserve, so the lodge you pick decides which one you use |
| Garden Route | Self-drive, about 800 kilometres end to end, Cape Town to Gqeberha | No change | The car is dropped at the airport at either end |
| Mauritius | About four hours | Two hours ahead | Plaine Magnien, on the south-east of the island, so the road to the west or north coast runs an hour and a quarter to ninety minutes |
| Zanzibar | Three hours and thirty five minutes, direct | One hour ahead | Abeid Amani Karume International sits seven kilometres south of Stone Town, and the drive in is fifteen to twenty minutes; Nungwi is an hour to an hour and a quarter |
| Dubai | About eight hours over roughly 6 400 kilometres | Two hours ahead | Dubai International sits five kilometres east of the city centre, so the transfer is short whatever time you land |
The flight times and transfer times above are the figures published on each destination's own page, not fresh estimates. Schedules change and the airline you end up on decides the actual time in the air, so treat these as planning figures rather than a timetable. They are the reason a trip is shaped the way it is, and that part does not change.
What the clock change costs you on the first day
On a four hour flight a clock change does its work on your first afternoon, and it is the difference between arriving with a day in hand and arriving with nothing left of it.
Mauritius, two hours ahead
Four hours in the air and a two hour clock change, and the first afternoon is gone to travel. Mauritius sits two hours ahead of South African time, which on this trip is the whole of your first afternoon. The seven night shape on that page is built around that fact: the first day is a transfer, and the week that follows is unhurried on purpose.
On the way home the return flight lands in Johannesburg the same evening South African time. Add the two hours back to the clock when you plan the drive home from the airport, or the evening will feel shorter than the schedule says.
Zanzibar, one hour ahead
The direct flight runs three hours and thirty five minutes and Zanzibar sits one hour ahead of South African time, so an early flight lands you in Stone Town with the afternoon still in front of you. Of the two islands this is the one that gives you a first day rather than taking it.
The direct flight back runs about four hours and you put the clock back an hour on landing. The hour you gain on the way out is the hour you give back at the end, which is the honest version of a short clock change.
Dubai, two hours ahead, but the night flight pays for it
Dubai is two hours ahead of South Africa and neither country shifts its clocks, so the difference never changes. Eight hours in the air is the longest journey of the six, and on a four night break that would make no sense.
The schedule makes the shape work: the night flight out of Johannesburg arrives in the morning, which leaves the afternoon free. You are in a room by midday and out again by two. The day flight home leaves in the morning and lands in the mid afternoon, so you get home the same day.
Cape Town, Kruger and the Garden Route, no change at all
These three run on the same clock as the rest of the country, and none of them puts an ocean and a time zone between you and the first morning. That is why they work as shorter trips: there is no arrival day to recover from, so a four or five night trip is four or five nights of holiday.
The Garden Route adds a different cost instead. It is a self-drive of about 800 kilometres end to end, built so that no single driving day runs much past four hours except the first. The car is part of the trip rather than something you collect at the airport and forget.
Three things that go wrong at the airport, and one that goes wrong at the counter
| What goes wrong | What it looks like | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| The arrival day counted as a holiday day | A beach afternoon that is really a flight, a terminal and a ninety minute transfer, arriving after dark with nothing done | Land, transfer, eat, sleep. Plan the first full day for the day after, and put nothing on the arrival day |
| The connection at Johannesburg that will not close | Two flights on the same day that need a night in Johannesburg between them, discovered after the pair was chosen | Ask for the connection before you fall in love with the pair. If the schedule forces the night, take it and count it as a night |
| The clock on the drive home | A return flight that lands late, a two hour clock change taken for granted, and a drive home that starts an hour later than planned | Add the clock change to the airport run, not to the holiday |
| Paperwork left to the airport | The visa position, entry rules, departure taxes or an inbound insurance requirement discovered at the counter | These are checked at booking, because they change. This page does not answer them and will not pretend to |
The entry rules and visa position for your passport are confirmed by Lizanne at booking. They change, they differ by passport, and a web page that was right in October is not a document you should stand at a counter with. If you are choosing between two trips rather than working out how to reach one, the choosing guide starts with the nights you have. If you want two of them in one holiday, the two centre guide counts the move between them as the third cost, which is the same arithmetic on a different scale. If the nights are the open question, how long to go divides each published band by its own nights and prices the fourth safari night on its own.
What to put in the brief
Send these six lines
- The month and the nights you can take.
- Where you are flying from, if it is not Johannesburg.
- Whether you would rather fly direct, drive, or take the domestic hop.
- Who is travelling, and the age of the youngest and the oldest.
- Whether a long flight is fine or you want the shortest one on the list.
- A ceiling you will not cross, if you have one.
What comes back, and when
A plan that names the journey as well as the destination: the flight, the transfer, the night you lose at the front and the day you lose at the end. That arrives the same day. The live price and the actual schedule follow once Lizanne has confirmed them with the trade, in writing.
If the journey does not fit the nights you have, that is what you will hear first, with the closest trip that does fit next to it. A plan that never becomes a booking costs you nothing.
Tell us the month, the nights and where you are flying from.
Three lines are enough to start. If the journey rules a trip out, you will hear that first.
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Free to the traveller.
The planning lane costs you nothing. A plan that never becomes a booking costs nothing either.
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One named human.
Lizanne van Niekerk plans it and books it. She is the person you message on the day of travel.
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Indicative until confirmed.
Every number before the booking is a planning range. The binding price is confirmed in writing.
Read how it works for the three steps, or what a finished plan looks like.