Day 0
Flight to Cape Town
Our trip to South Africa gave us the opportunity to see a number of different parts of the country - bustling Cape Town, the rugged coast of the Cape of Good Hope, the verdant and natural Hluhluwe region, the incredible Kruger National Park, and dramatic Johannesburg. This was the first bus tour that Todd and I had taken, and it definitely had its advantages and disadvantages. The tour was organized by Gate 1 Travel, and they did a great job. I was very happy with the way they ran the tour. That being said, we did end up spending a fair bit of time in the bus and we didn’t always get to see everything in a location we may have wanted to. It was great to be able to see as much of South Africa as we did, but I’m also not in a hurry to do another bus trip in the near future. We had a day ahead of the tour to visit Cape Town on our own, and I felt this was a great way to see more of this huge city. Our flight home gave us the opportunity to see a bit of Paris, which was a special treat. It was especially lucky that we were able to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral before the catastrophic fire of 2019.
June may not have been the ideal month to visit Cape Town - the weather didn’t always cooperate, but outside of Cape Town June was a great time to visit South Africa. It wasn’t too hot during the day, but it also wasn’t particularly cold in the evenings. This was my first long-haul flight on both KLM and Air France, and both airlines were great to travel on. The KLM airplanes were definitely newer than the Air France ones, but the Air France planes were perfectly serviceable. South Africa is a beautiful place to visit, but I felt that we saw a lot of what it has to offer so I don’t feel like I need to go back for a while!
