My family has grown somewhat -  and I mean more in age than in numbers. This means the kids are old enough to join us on a trip to South Africa. My husband and I had been on our honeymoon to South Africa and thought it was the perfect place to return with the kids. This time around, we wanted to travel in exclusive "sole use" accommodation, to still get the home-from-home experience and a little more attention to our family needs.  

With just two weeks of holiday time, we had to ensure that this time was maximized for the kids’ educational purposes. Our faithful agent was ever-equipped with ways to make this happen and our trip was planned within an hour of our consultation.

We arrived in Johannesburg, hired a car and followed our GPS to our apartment hotel where we planned on staying for 2 nights. Our apartment allowed us to spread out and have the privacy our family needed. As part of our kids’ educational learning, we visited the Maropeng Caves, the Cradle of Humankind, and ended off with a traditional lunch at Lesedi Cultural Village.

Soon it was on the road again as we headed along the most scenic drive in South Africa called the Panoramic Route, taking in sites like God's Window, Bourke's Luck Potholes, Graskop and Pilgrims Rest. We spent the night in White River (a little town tucked away just north of Mbombela/Nelspruit). The next day we began our family safari vacation. We were on safari for the next 4 nights, indulging in great food, amazing big 5 experiences and of course animal conservation lessons for the kids. The exciting part of our safari is that my husband and I still got to have lots of alone time as the kids were very entertained with the rangers - even going on a village tour.

After our magical time in the bush, we drove to Kruger Mpumalanga Airport, dropped off our car and boarded our flight to Cape Town. Here we opted out of driving ourselves around as we felt it more beneficial for a driver-guide chauffeur service. We hired this service for 5 days and traveled the Cape at our leisure from our villa/house. This flexibility was exactly what we needed in case we wanted to spend more time in one place or skip something altogether. We really enjoyed this way of traveling.
Our time went past really quickly and our kids learned so much from having a qualified guide to teach them all about Robben Island, the endangered Cape Jackass Penguins to the Cape Point where two oceans meet. They were delighted about South Africa and we will return!