Cape Town to Victoria Falls (Africa)

Twenty-one nights from Cape Town to Victoria Falls, guided, 5,200 kilometres through South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

This is the operator’s flagship and a one-way crossing rather than a loop, which is the whole point: it starts at the bottom of the continent and finishes at one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Chapman’s Peak and the Franschhoek Pass open it, then Cape Agulhas, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet and swimming is possible, and Route 62 through the Klein Karoo to the Garden Route. Jeffreys Bay follows with its surf break and its bridge bungee, then Graaff-Reinet in the Great Karoo with the Valley of Desolation above it, and Elliot in the southern Drakensberg foothills. A rest day at Himeville offers a 4×4 ascent of the Sani Pass into Lesotho, with lunch at the highest pub in Africa. Hluhluwe and the KwaZulu-Natal game country follow, then the long haul north through Eswatini and Botswana to the Falls. A dolphin safari falls early on, though no sighting can be promised.

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-two days and six borders is a serious undertaking and the price reflects what it takes to move a group that far. The southern African dry season from roughly May to October is the window, and anyone considering it should start on visas early, since several of these countries want paperwork in advance.