South Africa-Namibia trip summary
Feb 28, 2011 21:13:47 GMT
Post by Kimby on Feb 28, 2011 21:13:47 GMT
Inspired by tod2's fabulous photo thread on the Post Cards part of Any Port, I am posting my somewhat dated summary of our 2002 trip to South Africa and Namibia. (All prices in USD.)
SOUTH AFRICA - NAMIBIA
November 2 - 25, 2002
We had a great trip to Southern Africa! The people were friendly, the food was good (and incredibly cheap), the wildlife watching was terrific and the weather mostly cooperated, with only a couple rainy days. Though there were other tourists, we didn’t run into any other American tourists until we got to Cape Town, where a big cruise ship was in port. We don’t understand why more Americans aren’t taking advantage of traveling in South Africa, it‘s such a great place! And the exchange rate is still pretty favorable. We never felt unsafe, mainly because we avoided Johannesburg. And almost everyone speaks English. The biggest travel challenge is driving on the left (more about that later).
The trip was way less expensive doing it on our own than it would have been as a tour. We spent just over $3000 for 21 days, excluding souvenirs, averaging $72 per person per day. (For comparison, a 13-day Geographic Expeditions South African tour costs $5657 per person, or $435 per person per day!) We used credit cards plus $1000 worth of ATM cash draws, and were surprised that we got a slightly better rate on the ATMS, even with the $2 transaction fee. (Didn’t need the travelers’ checks we brought for backup.)
We used free frequent flyer plane tickets to fly to Johannesburg and home from Cape Town on Delta and South African Airways, and our 2 intra-Africa flights (Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia, & Windhoek to Cape Town) cost $237 per person.
We rented cars in 3 cities in 2 countries for 1 week each, and including gas & tolls the average daily cost of having a car was $36.50. Two-wheel drive rental cars are perfectly adequate for game drives during the dry season, which November is. Air conditioning is essential, and allowed us to game-drive the dusty park roads in much more comfort than the folks in the open top Range Rover safari vehicles, who paid lots more for the privilege of breathing dust all day long!
Not counting some groceries we brought from home (granola, peanut butter, crackers, etc.), food cost us less than $16 a day, on average, including eating supper out almost every night! We bought groceries for breakfasts in the room and picnicked at lunchtime everyday. About a third of the time, breakfast was included in our room rate. We stayed at "self-catering bushveld camps" in Kruger Park, enclaves of housekeeping cottages where you must bring & cook your own groceries since there are no restaurants in camp. (The larger "rest camps" do have restaurants, as well as grocery stores (selling "bushmeat") for those staying in the bushveld camps.) For the 17 dinners we ate out, the average price was $14 for two, including beer or wine! (The range was $4.89 for pizza to $22.34 for two all-you-can-eat buffets at the most expensive lodge we stayed at, in Namibia.)
Lodging ranged from $21 to $117 and averaged $52 per night, for much nicer rooms than we usually stay in on a trip. We marveled at paying less than $43 per night for a house on a seaside cliff with private steps down to the beach!
Park and museum admissions added up to $105, about $5 per day for the two of us, but the range was huge, from 50 cents per person for waterfalls & pools along the Panorama Route to $10.25 each for the Table Mountain Cable Car in Cape Town. Miscellaneous costs included a rented cellphone (for which we paid $1 per day for insurance, plus about $12 for the calls we made) , maps & books, internet time, postcards & stamps, etc.
We felt that South Africa/Namibia is one of our favorite destinations yet, in spite of wrecking our rental car and losing much of a day waiting for a replacement. (No one injured and we didn’t get jailed, so all’s well that ends well.)
See also the report of the game driving in Kruger in a separate thread.
SOUTH AFRICA - NAMIBIA
November 2 - 25, 2002
We had a great trip to Southern Africa! The people were friendly, the food was good (and incredibly cheap), the wildlife watching was terrific and the weather mostly cooperated, with only a couple rainy days. Though there were other tourists, we didn’t run into any other American tourists until we got to Cape Town, where a big cruise ship was in port. We don’t understand why more Americans aren’t taking advantage of traveling in South Africa, it‘s such a great place! And the exchange rate is still pretty favorable. We never felt unsafe, mainly because we avoided Johannesburg. And almost everyone speaks English. The biggest travel challenge is driving on the left (more about that later).
The trip was way less expensive doing it on our own than it would have been as a tour. We spent just over $3000 for 21 days, excluding souvenirs, averaging $72 per person per day. (For comparison, a 13-day Geographic Expeditions South African tour costs $5657 per person, or $435 per person per day!) We used credit cards plus $1000 worth of ATM cash draws, and were surprised that we got a slightly better rate on the ATMS, even with the $2 transaction fee. (Didn’t need the travelers’ checks we brought for backup.)
We used free frequent flyer plane tickets to fly to Johannesburg and home from Cape Town on Delta and South African Airways, and our 2 intra-Africa flights (Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia, & Windhoek to Cape Town) cost $237 per person.
We rented cars in 3 cities in 2 countries for 1 week each, and including gas & tolls the average daily cost of having a car was $36.50. Two-wheel drive rental cars are perfectly adequate for game drives during the dry season, which November is. Air conditioning is essential, and allowed us to game-drive the dusty park roads in much more comfort than the folks in the open top Range Rover safari vehicles, who paid lots more for the privilege of breathing dust all day long!
Not counting some groceries we brought from home (granola, peanut butter, crackers, etc.), food cost us less than $16 a day, on average, including eating supper out almost every night! We bought groceries for breakfasts in the room and picnicked at lunchtime everyday. About a third of the time, breakfast was included in our room rate. We stayed at "self-catering bushveld camps" in Kruger Park, enclaves of housekeeping cottages where you must bring & cook your own groceries since there are no restaurants in camp. (The larger "rest camps" do have restaurants, as well as grocery stores (selling "bushmeat") for those staying in the bushveld camps.) For the 17 dinners we ate out, the average price was $14 for two, including beer or wine! (The range was $4.89 for pizza to $22.34 for two all-you-can-eat buffets at the most expensive lodge we stayed at, in Namibia.)
Lodging ranged from $21 to $117 and averaged $52 per night, for much nicer rooms than we usually stay in on a trip. We marveled at paying less than $43 per night for a house on a seaside cliff with private steps down to the beach!
Park and museum admissions added up to $105, about $5 per day for the two of us, but the range was huge, from 50 cents per person for waterfalls & pools along the Panorama Route to $10.25 each for the Table Mountain Cable Car in Cape Town. Miscellaneous costs included a rented cellphone (for which we paid $1 per day for insurance, plus about $12 for the calls we made) , maps & books, internet time, postcards & stamps, etc.
We felt that South Africa/Namibia is one of our favorite destinations yet, in spite of wrecking our rental car and losing much of a day waiting for a replacement. (No one injured and we didn’t get jailed, so all’s well that ends well.)
See also the report of the game driving in Kruger in a separate thread.
