South Africa · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of South Africa.

Find places to visit in South Africa. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

South Africa · ZA

Royal Natal National Park

Royal Natal National Park, tucked into the high northern Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal, is where South Africa's most photographed mountain wall stands: the Amphitheatre, a near-vertical escarpment of basalt more than five kilometres around and roughly a kilometre tall. From its rim plunges Tugela Falls, at about 948 m the tallest waterfall in Africa and a serious contender among the world's highest. This is the dramatic face of the uKhahlamba–Drakensberg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of gigantic buttresses, hidden valleys, virgin forest and crystal-clear rivers, managed as part of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife's protected estate. What makes the park special is that the same cliffs can be met at more than one level. Serious walkers climb to the very top of the falls along the chain-ladder Sentinel route; day-trippers and families can follow the gentle Tugela Gorge path from the valley floor and look up at the wall, or spend the morning picnicking and birding among Mahai's forests and streams. Whatever your legs and appetite for exposure, Royal Natal rewards a stay of two or three days rather than a single drive-by viewpoint.

Nature preserve

South Africa · ZA

Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve

Just 11 km south of the Johannesburg CBD, Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve is the city's biggest proclaimed wilderness and its best-kept green secret. Roughly 680 hectares of open grassland, rocky koppies (hills) and the slow Bloubos Spruit, the reserve earns its Afrikaans name — "stone river mountain" — and gives you a genuine feel for unspoilt Highveld veld without leaving the metro. It is a walking and birding haven first and foremost: a network of trails of up to nine kilometres threads across the hills, while the grasslands shelter plains game such as zebra, blesbok, black wildebeest and red hartebeest. On top of that, the reserve is an archaeological treasure chest, holding the highest concentration of identified Iron Age sites on the entire Witwatersrand, the ruins of an 1850 Voortrekker homestead, and even a battlefield corner of the Second Boer War.

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South Africa · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of South Africa.

Find places to visit in South Africa. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

National park

South Africa · ZA

Royal Natal National Park

Royal Natal National Park, tucked into the high northern Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal, is where South Africa's most photographed mountain wall stands: the Amphitheatre, a near-vertical escarpment of basalt more than five kilometres around and roughly a kilometre tall. From its rim plunges Tugela Falls, at about 948 m the tallest waterfall in Africa and a serious contender among the world's highest. This is the dramatic face of the uKhahlamba–Drakensberg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of gigantic buttresses, hidden valleys, virgin forest and crystal-clear rivers, managed as part of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife's protected estate. What makes the park special is that the same cliffs can be met at more than one level. Serious walkers climb to the very top of the falls along the chain-ladder Sentinel route; day-trippers and families can follow the gentle Tugela Gorge path from the valley floor and look up at the wall, or spend the morning picnicking and birding among Mahai's forests and streams. Whatever your legs and appetite for exposure, Royal Natal rewards a stay of two or three days rather than a single drive-by viewpoint.

Nature preserve

South Africa · ZA

Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve

Just 11 km south of the Johannesburg CBD, Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve is the city's biggest proclaimed wilderness and its best-kept green secret. Roughly 680 hectares of open grassland, rocky koppies (hills) and the slow Bloubos Spruit, the reserve earns its Afrikaans name — "stone river mountain" — and gives you a genuine feel for unspoilt Highveld veld without leaving the metro. It is a walking and birding haven first and foremost: a network of trails of up to nine kilometres threads across the hills, while the grasslands shelter plains game such as zebra, blesbok, black wildebeest and red hartebeest. On top of that, the reserve is an archaeological treasure chest, holding the highest concentration of identified Iron Age sites on the entire Witwatersrand, the ruins of an 1850 Voortrekker homestead, and even a battlefield corner of the Second Boer War.