South Africa: A Journey That Started 36 Years Before I Reached There

TL;DR: For The Impatient Traveler

Our South Africa journey was an 18-day family road trip covering roughly 4,000 kilometres, starting in Cape Town and taking us through the Cape Peninsula, Hermanus, the Karoo, Clarens, Johannesburg, Kruger National Park, the Panorama Route and Dullstroom before returning to Johannesburg. We started with a rental car and later switched to an RV for Kruger and the final part of the journey. There were penguins, whales, mountain roads, endless highways, wildlife, an RV breakdown, unexpected friendships and plenty of changed plans.

But for me, this journey actually started 36 years earlier. As a schoolboy in 1990, I sat beside Dad watching Nelson Mandela walk out of prison on our black-and-white television. Then cricket brought South Africa closer through players such as Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Lance Klusener and Jacques Kallis. More than 90 countries later, I finally reached the country that had lived in my imagination since childhood, this time with my own family.

The Lost Mumbaikar Says:
“South Africa is not a country you simply visit. You drive it, feel it and slowly understand why one journey is never enough”.

A Journey That Actually Started in 1990

Some journeys start when you book a ticket, but I think my South Africa journey started somewhere in February 1990. I still remember coming back from school and seeing Dad unusually interested in reaching the radio and later the television. Dad was always like that. News, newspapers, politics and what was happening around the world were part of his daily life. Many times I had no idea why a particular story was so important to him, but because he followed everything so closely, somehow those names and countries also entered my childhood.

That day it was Nelson Mandela. Mandela was getting released after spending 27 years in prison, and although I was still too young to properly understand apartheid, the ANC or the politics of South Africa, I knew Mandela because Dad had spoken about him many times. When your father repeatedly talks about someone or somewhere, those names automatically become part of your childhood even when you don’t completely understand their importance.

In those days our world was very different. We had a black-and-white television and Doordarshan was almost our only serious window to international news. There was no social media, no mobile notification and no twenty-four-hour television shouting breaking news every few minutes. We waited for the evening news, and strangely I still feel that half an hour of Doordarshan gave us more actual news than many twenty-four-hour channels give us today. There was less noise, less drama and probably more attention.

That evening Dad and I watched Mandela coming out. For years the images we had seen were mostly of a much younger Mandela, so seeing this 71-year-old man finally walking through the prison gate was striking. I did not fully understand the history unfolding in front of me, but I understood from Dad’s reaction that this was something important. A man had spent 27 years behind bars and was now walking towards freedom while the world watched.

Sometimes I wonder whether the travelling bug entered me somewhere around those years. Maybe it did not begin at an airport or after getting my first passport. Maybe it came through Dad’s newspapers, Doordarshan and all those strange country names I kept hearing inside our home. South Africa was one of them. Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Johannesburg, Cape Town, apartheid and the ANC were words that kept appearing. I had absolutely no idea then that these names would stay with me for decades.

Then cricket completely changed my relationship with South Africa. When South Africa returned to international cricket and came to India in 1991, suddenly it was no longer only a country from the news. We saw Clive Rice, Allan Donald, Kepler Wessels, Hansie Cronje, Jonty Rhodes, Andrew Hudson and later Gary Kirsten. What a different breed of cricketers they looked like at that time. Donald running in was something else, while Jonty Rhodes seemed to have decided that fielding itself should become entertainment.

Then came the 1992 World Cup. South Africa lost that famous semifinal, but somewhere during that tournament they won my heart. After that, whenever India toured South Africa, I was waiting. Slowly I started noticing not only the cricket but everything around it. Newlands with Table Mountain behind it, Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Centurion, the beaches, mountains and those huge South African skies all started becoming familiar.

Without realizing it, I wasn’t only watching cricket anymore. I was looking at a country.

Later came Lance “Zulu” Klusener and Jacques Kallis, two more favourites of mine and named my kids as Zulu and Zakk. By then South Africa was no longer some unfamiliar destination. It was one of those countries sitting quietly inside my head with one question attached to it: when am I going?

Life took its own route after that. College, work, Mumbai, Qatar, Dubai, marriage, kids and travel after travel all came in between. More than ninety countries happened, but South Africa somehow kept waiting.

Then finally, on 21 August 2026, our wedding anniversary, the plan became real. Thirty-six years after watching Mandela walk out of prison with Dad, I was flying to South Africa with my own family, “this time I was dad”.

This time I was Dad.

Cape Town, Rain and Penguins

We landed at Cape Town International Airport, collected our rental car and the road trip finally started. Anyone who knows my travelling style knows that I enjoy destinations, but roads excite me even more. Give me an empty highway, mountain curves, a coastal road and a few places where I can stop without planning, and I am happy.

Cape Town had been sitting in my imagination for decades because of cricket, and now I was actually there. We had Table Mountain, V&A Waterfront, Chapman’s Peak Drive, Boulders Beach, Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope on the list.

For the first night we stayed centrally enough to walk to the V&A Waterfront, so naturally that became our first destination. The Waterfront is one of those tourist places that I actually enjoyed being touristy. Harbour, restaurants, shops, boats, people, drinks and Table Mountain sitting behind everything. We had lunch, walked around and planned to do Table Mountain afterwards.

Cape Town had other ideas.

It rained, the mountain disappeared behind clouds and our first carefully planned itinerary collapsed almost immediately. We decided Table Mountain would happen the next morning.

The next morning came, but Table Mountain was still not interested in meeting us.

So I told the family we were changing the plan and driving towards Chapman’s Peak.

That turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip. Chapman’s Peak is exactly the kind of road I travel for. Mountain on one side, Atlantic Ocean on the other, cliffs below and one curve opening into another view. The only problem is that whenever I tell my family a drive will take two hours, they know that with my photo stops it may easily take four.

A flight gets you somewhere faster. The road gives you the story.

From there we continued towards Simon’s Town and Boulders Beach. I had booked accommodation barely around 100 metres from the famous African penguin colony, and the funny thing was that the penguins were appearing around the area close to where we were staying.

Naturally I told the kids that there was no need to pay to see the penguins because they had already come to our house.

Dad logic.

We stayed around Simon’s Town and Boulders for two nights, and that made the experience much better than simply arriving, photographing the penguins and leaving. It felt as though we were staying in their neighbourhood.

From there we explored Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope before moving towards Hermanus. The landscape changed again. Hermanus brought cliffs, ocean and whale country, and then we continued through Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay, Rooi-Els, Clarence Drive and Gordon’s Bay.

Clarence Drive became another road where the journey itself was the attraction. By this point South Africa had started showing us its biggest strength: diversity. A modern city, mountains, Atlantic coastline, penguins, whale country, small towns and spectacular roads, all within the first few days.

South Africa was already going out of syllabus.

Why Fly to Johannesburg When We Could Drive?

After roughly five days around Cape Town and the Western Cape, the real overland journey began.

Johannesburg was waiting.

Most sensible people would probably fly. We drove.

The direct Cape Town to Johannesburg journey is roughly 1,400 kilometres, but we deliberately divided ours into stages because getting there quickly was never the point. Our route took us through Worcester, Beaufort West and Colesberg before Clarens and eventually Johannesburg.

This was when we began seeing another South Africa. The ocean disappeared and the Karoo opened in front of us with huge skies, long highways and enormous empty spaces. There were stretches where the road seemed to continue forever.

This is why I love road trips. Flying compresses geography. You leave one airport and a couple of hours later appear somewhere completely different. Everything between those two cities disappears.

Driving does the opposite.

You see the small towns, petrol stations, farms, roadside restaurants, mountains and gradual changes in vegetation. You start understanding how large a country really is.

Eventually we reached Clarens, and I liked it almost immediately. After all those long roads and open spaces, it felt small, relaxed and surrounded by beautiful countryside. We saw Titanic Rock and drove through Golden Gate Highlands National Park.

A few days earlier we had been standing beside the Atlantic watching penguins. Now we were driving through mountain scenery and open grasslands.

The country kept changing.

Then came Johannesburg.

Johannesburg: Fear Versus Reality

Before travelling to South Africa, Johannesburg had probably created the most concern. Everybody had something to say about crime, carjackings, phones, traffic lights, driving after dark and areas we should avoid.

I think I gave so many safety instructions to the family that eventually they were probably more frightened of my briefing than Johannesburg itself.

To be clear, South Africa does have genuine crime issues and I would never advise anyone to ignore them. We kept the doors locked, avoided unnecessarily displaying phones, researched where we stayed and were careful about where we drove.

But the Johannesburg I actually found surprised me.

First was the size. The city is enormous, with highways, suburbs and commercial areas spreading everywhere. At one point I got a similar feeling to driving into Chicago. Not because the cities look the same, but because of that feeling of scale and urban spread.

We stayed around Rosebank and Sandton, and our experience there was completely different from the Johannesburg I had built inside my head through years of negative stories.

That does not mean the warnings were wrong. It simply means warnings should not become your entire understanding of a place.

There is a difference between being careful and being afraid.

One of the most meaningful experiences came when we visited Constitution Hill. Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned within the Old Fort complex, and Mahatma Gandhi had also been imprisoned there decades earlier. Suddenly South African and Indian history were standing together in front of us.

I watched Julius and Jordan reading the exhibits and information. As a father, that mattered to me. Travel is not only about taking children to beaches, restaurants and beautiful viewpoints. Sometimes you take them somewhere uncomfortable and let history speak for itself.

Standing there, I thought about Dad again. Mandela had first entered my life through Dad and our black-and-white television. Thirty-six years later I was standing inside a place connected with that history, but now my own sons were beside me.

That moment alone made Johannesburg worth visiting.

The RV, Kruger and When Adventure Became Too Adventurous

After Johannesburg we collected an RV for the next stage of the trip. It looked fantastic. Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and toilet, basically our accommodation with an engine underneath it.

That was when I met Siya, who handled the paperwork and explained the vehicle before handing me the keys. At that moment it was just a normal rental transaction. I had no idea he would eventually become one of the people I remembered from the trip.

Why an RV? Because I wanted the full road-trip experience. A normal car and hotels would have been much easier, but staying close to nature and carrying our little home with us sounded more adventurous.

Sometimes adventure sounds better before you actually begin it.

We drove east, stopping around Alzu before continuing towards Kruger. The following day we entered Kruger National Park through Orpen Gate.

Driving your own vehicle into Kruger is a completely different experience from visiting a zoo or even joining a normal organized safari. There is no enclosure between you and the landscape. If an elephant decides to occupy the road, you wait.

September was a good time for wildlife viewing, and soon we were seeing elephants, giraffes, zebra, buffalo, wildebeest, impala, kudu, hyenas, hippos and crocodiles.

And naturally we kept searching for lions.

We moved towards the Satara region, well known for predators, and every time we saw a few vehicles stopped together we immediately wanted to know what they had found. After several hours in Kruger, every rock starts looking like a lion and every branch starts looking like a leopard.

Our original plan was around three nights in Kruger.

Then the RV decided it also wanted to be part of the adventure.

The vehicle had been giving us trouble almost from the beginning. Initially we managed, but eventually it stopped inside Kruger.

Now imagine four people inside a large RV, in a national park full of wild animals, while Dad continues explaining that this is all part of the adventure.

The family was not buying it anymore.

RV travel looks extremely romantic in photographs. After three or four days with four people living inside one vehicle, you start seeing the other side. Space becomes limited, everyone’s belongings are everywhere, water needs attention, electricity needs attention, the toilet needs attention and every time you drive you are basically moving your entire house.

For me it was still manageable. Give me a steering wheel and a road and my tolerance level becomes unusually high. But I could understand the family’s frustration. A family adventure has to remain enjoyable for the family, not only for the person driving.

Somehow we managed to reach Satara, but our Kruger programme had to be shortened. The rental company arranged a replacement RV and we decided to meet around Graskop.

At that moment I thought we had lost part of the trip.

Instead, the breakdown gave us something else.

Panorama Route, Dullstroom and the People Along the Way

We reached Graskop and Siya arrived with a replacement RV. He apologized for everything we had experienced, and thankfully the new vehicle worked perfectly.

Because our programme had changed, we now had additional time around the Panorama Route. What looked like a lost day suddenly became a gift.

We explored God’s Window, Pinnacle Rock, Lisbon Falls, Berlin Falls and Graskop Gorge before continuing to Bourke’s Luck Potholes, Blyde River Canyon and the Three Rondavels.

Standing there, I again struggled to understand how all of this belonged to one country. Cape Town and the Atlantic, Boulders and penguins, Hermanus and whales, the Karoo, Golden Gate, Johannesburg, Kruger’s wildlife and now forests, waterfalls and canyons.

South Africa was completely out of syllabus.

The RV breakdown had actually given us more time to experience this part of the country. If everything had gone perfectly, perhaps we would have rushed through it.

That is travel. Sometimes the plan that fails gives you the story you remember.

Our final night on the road was in Dullstroom, where we went to The Coachman Restaurant & Bar for food and drinks. Their manager’s name was Jack, and I kept calling Zakk. Every time I called “Zakk,” some of the staff thought I was calling Jack.

Eventually Jack understood what was happening and explained the confusion to everyone. It became a running joke, and by the end of dinner we were talking like people who had known each other much longer than one evening. He introduced us to Travis, their head chef, and we spent a really enjoyable evening talking, eating and laughing.

You can plan Table Mountain. You can book Kruger. You can put Blyde River Canyon into Google Maps. But you cannot plan meeting Jack in Dullstroom.

That is one reason I travel.

Places give you photographs. People give you stories.

The following morning we drove back towards Johannesburg, where Siya was waiting. Because of everything that had happened with the first RV, he and his colleagues were extremely cooperative. There were things that could normally have resulted in extra charges, including fuel and servicing issues, but they knew what we had experienced and told us not to worry.

Then they went further. We still had some time, so a car was arranged and Siya joined us. Having a local person beside us changed Johannesburg again. We drove around, talked about the city and life in South Africa and eventually finished the evening over typical South African food.

It was a fitting end to the road trip.

Before arriving in South Africa, so many conversations had been about being careful of people. Eighteen days later, people were among the best memories we were taking home.

The Lost Mumbaikar Reflections

After more than ninety countries, South Africa still managed to surprise me. Not because everything was perfect, because it wasn’t. Not because every plan worked, because clearly it did not. It surprised me because every few hundred kilometres the country seemed to become something completely different.

When people ask me how long the journey was, I can say eighteen days and roughly 4,000 kilometres. But that still does not feel like the correct answer.

My South African journey really began in February 1990, sitting beside Dad and watching Nelson Mandela walk out of prison on our black-and-white television. Then came cricket, Newlands, Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Zulu Klusener, Jacques Kallis and all those images that kept South Africa somewhere inside me.

Thirty-six years later I finally arrived, this time with Sunitha, Julius and Jordan. I was no longer the boy sitting beside Dad.

I was Dad.

Maybe that is why this journey meant more than another country added to my list. Some dreams do not need a deadline. They simply need to stay alive long enough for life to eventually take you there.

Some journeys begin long before we start the engine.

South Africa Road Trip FAQ

1 Is South Africa worth visiting?

For me, absolutely. After travelling to more than ninety countries, South Africa became one of the destinations that surprised me most. Its biggest strength is diversity. Cape Town, the Western Cape coastline, the Karoo, Johannesburg, Kruger and the Panorama Route offer completely different experiences within one trip.

2 Is South Africa safe for a family road trip?

South Africa has genuine crime issues, so I would not advise travellers to become careless. Our personal experience was much more positive than the picture we had formed before travelling. Be cautious and informed, but don’t allow fear alone to define the country.

3 Can you drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg?

Yes, and for us the drive became one of the highlights. The direct distance is roughly 1,400 kilometres, so I would not recommend rushing it. We divided the journey and travelled through places including Worcester, Beaufort West, Colesberg, Clarens and Golden Gate Highlands National Park before reaching Johannesburg.

4 How many days do you need for a South Africa road trip?

If you want Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kruger and the Panorama Route in one self-drive trip, I would suggest at least two weeks. We travelled for 18 days and covered roughly 4,000 kilometres, and even then there were places where we could easily have spent longer.

5 Is self-driving in Kruger National Park possible?

Yes. Self-driving was one of my favourite parts of Kruger because you can travel at your own pace, stop when you see wildlife and enjoy the excitement of finding animals yourself. You still need to follow park rules, remain inside the vehicle where required and respect wildlife at all times.

6 Is an RV worth taking in South Africa?

It depends on your travelling style. I loved the freedom and the experience of having our accommodation travelling with us, but for a family of four it can become uncomfortable after several days. You need to manage space, water, electricity and the toilet, and a large RV is obviously more demanding than a normal car. I would happily do an RV adventure again, but probably for a shorter section of a longer trip.

7 What were my favourite parts of South Africa?

It is difficult to choose one. Chapman’s Peak was among my favourite drives, Kruger gave us the wildlife experience, the Panorama Route surprised me with its landscapes, and the long drive through the Karoo showed us a South Africa we would have completely missed by flying. Cape Town remains special because I had wanted to see it since childhood.

8 What is the best time to visit South Africa?

It depends on what you want to experience. Our August and September journey worked particularly well because it was dry season around Kruger, while the Western Cape was in its cooler, wetter period and Hermanus was in whale season. The trade-off was Cape Town weather, where rain and cloud affected some of our plans.

9 Would I do the same road trip again?

Yes, but probably with a few changes. I would give Cape Town more flexibility for weather, spend additional time in Kruger, and use an RV for a shorter part of the journey rather than several consecutive family days. What I would definitely keep is the long overland drive. Flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg would have been easier, but we would have missed a huge part of the South African experience.

For me, the road was never simply the distance between Cape Town and Johannesburg.