The Garden Route Trip You Keep Thinking About

You’ve decided you’re coming to Cape Town.

You’ve looked at the penguins, Cape Point, the Winelands and Table Mountain. You’ve probably started working out how many days you need and what you can realistically fit into your holiday.

And somewhere along the way, you keep coming across the Garden Route.

Knysna. Plettenberg Bay. Tsitsikamma. Robberg Nature Reserve.

And you keep thinking: should we do it?

My answer is yes.

group of smiling young tourists posing for a photo on a rocky scenic viewpoint during a full day tour.

I’ve travelled the Garden Route more times than I can remember, both personally and with guests, and I still look forward to going back. There’s something about leaving Cape Town behind and watching the scenery change as you head east that makes it feel like a proper journey rather than simply another day tour.

Then you arrive in places like Knysna and Plettenberg Bay and realise why people make the journey.

You can stand above the ocean at the Knysna Heads, walk through indigenous forest in Tsitsikamma, cross the suspension bridges at Storms River or take a walk at Robberg Nature Reserve with some of the best coastal views in South Africa.

But you don’t have to spend every minute rushing between attractions.

One of my favourite things about the Garden Route is simply having time.

Stop for coffee. Walk along a beach. Sit somewhere with an incredible view. Have lunch without looking at your watch. If we see somewhere interesting along the road, we can stop.

That’s one of the reasons Convoy Tours only offers private Garden Route tours.

A couple seen from behind, looking out at the dramatic ocean and coastal cliffs from the Cape Point viewpoint in Cape Town.

There’s no tour bus waiting for you, no large group and no rigid timetable dictating exactly how long you can spend somewhere. If you love a particular place, we stay longer. If something isn’t for you, we move on.

Your Garden Route trip should feel like your holiday, not somebody else’s itinerary.

If you’re travelling all the way to South Africa, I think the Garden Route deserves a few days of your time. Cape Town is extraordinary, but there is so much more waiting beyond the city.

And if you’ve been researching your South African holiday and somehow keep finding yourself looking at photographs of Knysna, Plettenberg Bay and Tsitsikamma, perhaps there’s a reason.

Stop wondering whether you should go.

Come and see it.