The Vineyard Hotel

South Africa Family Holiday

Family Safari + 1 more + 2 more

The ultimate family adventure through South Africa's highlights.

15 days

from £3,495 pp

Go Local in South Africa

Safari Wildlife & Nature + 3 more + 3 more

Real people. Real stories. Real South Africa.

19 days

from £6,690 pp

The Best of South Africa

Romantic Classic + 3 more + 3 more

Cape Town, wine & wildlife: South Africa's highlights over 11 days.

11 days

from £3,225 pp

South Africa Express

Wildlife & Nature Express + 1 more + 2 more

A whistle-stop adventure packed with penguins, wine and wildlife.

10 days

from £3,050 pp

Classic South Africa

Family Classic + 3 more + 3 more

A classic South African holiday, with a few lesser-visited surprises.

17 days

from £3,655 pp

Unexplored South Africa

Wildlife & Nature Luxury + 2 more + 3 more

Leave the tourist trail behind and experience a different South Africa.

14 days

from £9,350 pp

Quirky excursions

View all excursions in South Africa

Cape Town Sightseeing Bus

There are 17 stops on the Cape Town city tour offered by the hop-on, hop-off bus, and they cover all the main attractions. Starting at the V&A Waterfront, it wends through the city bowl stopping at St George’s Cathedral, the District Six Museum and the Cape Malay quarter of Bo-Kaap, before passing by the Table Mountain Cableway and then crossing the Kloof Nek pass and dropping into Camps Bay. It then starts to return along the coastline, through Sea Point past the brand new football stadium and back to the V&A Waterfront. You can get tickets valid one day, or two days as well as enhanced packages that include tickets for the Table Mountain Cableway and the Two Oceans Aquarium. The upper deck of the bus is open-topped allowing you to make the most of the sunny weather. Commentary is provided and includes a special commentary channel for children. This is a great way to see the city, and is considerably cheaper than a hire car or a taxi!

Ratanga Junction Theme Park

Ratanga Junction is a theme park offering rides that vary from the scream-out loud, 4G, 100 km/h thrills of the Cobra to the Crocodile Swamps, a gentle water ride for the younger and more sedate visitor. A simulator offers six different rides, taking you to different corners of the world and even into space, and for the most adventurous there is a slingshot, where strapped into a harness, you’ll be released from the top of a gantry, descending into a 90 km/h freefall before swinging back up again. There are a range of restaurants and shops in the park, which is set around a large river, making for a pleasant setting. Although theme parks are not a traditional thing for visitors to South Africa to do, it makes for a fun day out, particularly if you are travelling with children.

Cape Peninsula

Right on Cape Town’s doorstep, the Cape Peninsula is perhaps the most under-appreciated bit of South Africa. Nearly every visitor to Cape Town will make the journey down to Cape Point during their trip, but there is so much more to see and do that it could easily occupy several days of your time. Cape Point is rightfully so popular. The tiny finger of ridged land that creeps out beyond the lighthouse points down across empty ocean to the Antarctic, and standing there with the water all around you, there’s an amazing sense of how remote this corner of Africa really is. The real joy of the Cape Point Nature Reserve is the roads that lead down to little secluded bays, or the hiking trails that criss-cross the native fynbos vegetation, and you should definitely take the time to explore these. Heading back towards Cape Town, stop in Simon’s Town to see the jackass penguin colony at Boulder’s Beach, and remember, if you’ve got your trunks and it’s a warm day, you could even go swimming with them! Rather than continuing on the main road, take the minor road that cuts across the peninsula at this point and eat at the great little restaurant that you find here. You’re then on the right side of the peninsula to drive the jaw-dropping Chapman’s Peak Drive, an utterly spectacular road cut into the cliff side, exhilarating, beautiful and slightly terrifying! Beach lovers should schedule a stop at Llandudno to enjoy wonderful white sand and great surf, the like of which its Welsh counterpart has never enjoyed.

Shark Cage Diving

The waters off the Cape coast are one of the few places in the world that offer the exhilarating, adrenalin-fuelled experience of cage-diving with great white sharks. This takes place just off Dyer Island in Walker Bay, where huge numbers of seals attract these amazing predators to an area of water known as “Shark Alley”. Cage diving is possible on scuba gear and on snorkelling, so no previous diving experience is required. Sharks never attack the cages but do come very close, brushing the cage. They will also peer in, allowing you eye contact with these majestic creatures. The good cage diving outfits will seek to teach you about sharks, and are involved in monitoring and conservation projects, not just of the sharks but of a wide range of other marine wildlife. It’s an amazing experience and one you are unlikely to ever forget.

Cape Town Golf

Thanks to Gary Player and Ernie Els, golf enjoys a strong following in South Africa, and there are some world-class courses thanks to this legacy. There are historic courses, like the Royal Cape Golf Club, and more modern courses, purpose-built and designed by famous designers, such as the Erinvale course, designed by Gary Player. One thing that all the Cape courses share is the weather: whilst there will be lots of sun, which is great, there is also quite a bit of wind, making the courses more challenging than they may initially seem! Let us make your tee time reservations for you, and advise you how to fit some golfing into your time in South Africa.