Victoria Falls to Cape Town (Southern Africa)

Twenty-two nights from Victoria Falls to Cape Town, guided, one way across five countries, described by the operator as a blend of the highlights from its other African routes.

The shape is three distinct weeks: a week of Botswana wildlife, a week of Namibian desert gravel and a week down the South African coast, which is a great deal of variation for one trip.

Victoria Falls opens it, with a welcome dinner at the Victoria Falls Hotel, a colonial railway hotel from 1904 that still looks the part, and the Falls themselves the next day. Zambia and Botswana follow, with Chobe, where the elephant concentration is the highest anywhere, and baobabs along the way that run to a thousand years and more. A chartered flight over the Okavango Delta and a night in a tented bush camp come next, then the Trans-Kalahari crossing into Namibia and the desert week of gravel roads and scenic byways. South Africa follows, the Garden Route corridor through the Western and Eastern Cape, and Cape Town at the finish.

The bike hire is included, with a BMW F800GS as standard and upgrades available; the full inclusions are not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. Twenty-three days one way means flying home from a different country, which is worth costing in. No wildlife sighting can be promised. The dry season from May to October is the window. This is the same ground as the Cape Town to Victoria Falls expedition in reverse with the Namibian desert added, which is a fair trade for one extra day.