Eastern Cape

The province's headline park began in the 1930s as a last refuge for a remnant handful of elephants that had survived the clearing of the region, and it has since grown into a large reserve carrying the full complement of big game. That origin still shows: the elephant viewing here is exceptional, in numbers and at close range, and it is the reason most visitors come. What makes the park genuinely significant on a national itinerary, though, is that it is malaria-free — which removes the prophylaxis question entirely and makes it the obvious choice for families with young children, for pregnant travellers and for anyone who would rather not take the medication. Add the whales and great whites off the coast nearby and local operators market a seven-species checklist, which is marketing but not untrue. The park sits close to the province's main airport and an easy drive from the end of the Garden Route, so it slots onto an existing itinerary rather than requiring a new leg. Several private reserves nearby offer the same malaria-free proposition at lodge standard.

North-east of the main coastal road, the shoreline turns into something quite unlike anywhere else in the country: rolling green hills running right to the edge of the sea, cliffs and headlands broken by river mouths, long empty beaches, and scattered homesteads with cattle grazing down to the sand. This is the Xhosa heartland, densely settled but almost entirely undeveloped in the tourism sense — a handful of long-established family-run hotels and backpacker lodges, and very little else. The landmark most people have seen a photograph of is a detached cliff with a wave-cut arch punched clean through it, reachable on foot from a small coastal village.

The coast has no road running along it. Access is by a series of long spurs branching off the inland highway, each descending to a single village or hotel, many of them gravel and some in poor condition, and there is no connecting route between them — reaching the next bay along generally means driving back up to the highway and down again. That inaccessibility is precisely why the coast is empty and precisely why it stays that way, and it is the main reason to build a trip around one or two places rather than attempting to tour the region. The alternative, and the better one for anyone fit, is to walk: a multi-day hiking route runs along the shore between river mouths with basic accommodation in villages along the way, and it is one of the great coastal walks in Africa.

Inland the province rises into semi-desert grazing country — enormous, dry, sparsely populated, and much more compelling than that description suggests. Its centre is a beautifully preserved small town in a bend of a river, laid out in the eighteenth century and holding a remarkable density of Cape Dutch and Victorian buildings, with a cathedral at the end of a broad main street and a walkable core of white gables. A national park wraps almost entirely around the town, and above it stands the province's geological set piece: a plateau edge where erosion has left a cluster of towering dolerite columns rising sheer from the valley floor, best seen in the last hour of light. The Karoo silence at night and the density of stars are half the reason people who love this country love this part of it.

The rural district in the north of the province is the birthplace and later home of Nelson Mandela, and there is a heritage route through it centred on a museum with sites at the town of Mthatha and at his home village nearby, where a memorial and visitor centre sit in open hill country. It is open to visitors, it is straightforward to include on a drive through the region, and it is quiet — nothing like the scale of the Johannesburg institutions. Practical points if you go: it is a considerable detour off the main coastal route, the sites are some kilometres apart, and checking opening arrangements in advance is worthwhile because they are not on a high-volume tourist circuit.

The province's main airport, on the coast at its western end, is the usual arrival or departure point and is the natural place to end a Garden Route drive and fly out. From there the safari park is a short drive and the Karoo towns are two to four hours inland. The Wild Coast is a great deal further and genuinely rural — allow a full day of driving from the airport, take the road conditions seriously, and do not plan to arrive after dark. As for timing, the coast is mild and usable year-round and the interior is best in spring and autumn, since the Karoo is fiercely hot in midsummer and cold at night in winter. Game viewing in the malaria-free park follows the same dry-season logic as anywhere, but the park is far less seasonal than the northern bush and works well at any time.