8 Day East West Luxury Safari Honeymoon

Guests are met and welcomed at a location of their choice in Johannesburg. Once a few formalities have been completed, you’ll be transferred to the charter terminal, where you’ll board a light aircraft flight to the malaria-free Madikwe Private Game Reserve in South Africa’s North West province, close to the border with Botswana. Once safely on the ground, you’ll enjoy your first open 4x4 game drive experience as friendly lodge staff meet you at the airstrip and transport you to your luxury overnight accommodation at Madikwe Hills.

On arrival at your safari lodge, you’ll be warmly welcomed and assisted with settling in, after which some rest is on the agenda. Later in the day, you’ll enjoy your first exciting game drive into the Madikwe wilderness, guided by expert rangers and trackers who know the 75,000-hectare reserve intimately. The game drive starts in the late afternoon, pauses at a remote location in the bush for sundowners, and continues into the evening, lasting three to four hours to maximize your viewing opportunities.

While in Madikwe, you’ll enjoy two exciting guided game drives daily atop custom-built 4x4 vehicles. You may also participate in an optional guided nature walk at no additional expense, weather permitting, to appreciate tracks, plants and smaller creatures often missed from the vehicle. Madikwe is South Africa’s fifth-largest reserve, comprising roughly 75,000 hectares of African wilderness that supports the Big Five and a wide variety of plains game and birdlife.

The reserve is unique for two reasons: first, game-drive vehicles may traverse the entire reserve. This arrangement means your ranger may follow an animal wherever it goes and doesn’t have to disappoint guests by explaining that it cannot be followed because it has crossed an invisible boundary line. Madikwe also conveniently falls in an eco-zone overlap in Southern Africa, where the moister eastern bushveld converges with the drier Kalahari to the west. In addition to a similar variety of species as in the Kruger National Park, sightings of gemsbok, brown hyena and springbok are also possible – all animals that you definitely won’t see in the Kruger region.

After a last morning activity in Madikwe, you’ll return to Johannesburg, where you’ll be met and transferred to Castello di Monte in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital. This five-star Tuscan-style guest house is located on a hilltop in the affluent suburb of Waterkloof Ridge and enjoys superb views of Pretoria’s rolling hills. From the terraces, you can spot the Union Buildings on the opposite side of the valley and the granite Voortrekker Monument to the west, two of the city’s most iconic landmarks.

Creature comforts at Castello include fully stocked minibars, satellite television, underfloor heating, air conditioning, on-demand tea and coffee and local newspapers. Landscaped gardens with mature olive trees and lavender help create an Italian atmosphere in the African city. The upper roof deck is the perfect location to unwind and enjoy an African sunset with your beverage of choice. A full-course dinner is included in your stay as an African Sky guest, rounding off a relaxed transition between wilderness and city.

After breakfast, you’ll be transferred back to Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport, where you’ll board a scheduled flight to Skukuza, the gateway airport for the southern Kruger National Park. On arrival, a lodge representative meets you and transfers you by road through the bushveld to the highly regarded Dulini Moya Lodge in the Sabi Sand Reserve, a private concession that shares an unfenced boundary with Kruger and is famous for its intimate safari experiences.

This afternoon is devoted to an open 4x4 safari in this magnificent wilderness area. The Greater Kruger, incorporating the private Sabi Sand Game Reserve, offers some of Africa’s most reliable Big Five viewing, with frequent encounters with elephant, lion and especially leopard along the river systems. Between drives, you can relax on your deck, listen to bird calls along the Mabrak River and toast the start of the second chapter of your honeymoon under a changing African sky.

Guests enjoy two exciting guided game drives daily in custom-built open 4x4 vehicles, accompanied by a professional ranger and tracker team. You may also join an optional guided bush walk, which slows the pace so you can focus on tracks, birds and smaller creatures that are easily overlooked from the vehicle. Once a patchwork of privately owned farms, the Sabi Sand Reserve now shares an unfenced boundary with Kruger National Park and forms part of a roughly 65,000-hectare wilderness that supports an exceptional density of wildlife, especially along its two perennial rivers.

The reserve is internationally renowned for its high frequency of leopard sightings, arguably the most reliable anywhere in Africa, and these compelling cats are now well habituated to vehicles. Lions, elephants, rhinos and buffalo complete the Big Five, while plains game such as zebra, giraffe, wildebeest and nyala graze the riverine clearings. Endangered African wild dogs and swift cheetahs are increasingly seen on drives, and night drives reveal owls, civets and other nocturnal species as you return to the lodge for a candlelit dinner under the stars.

Your final morning game drive is devoted to searching for any species that may have eluded you so far. Guides often joke that the bush saves its best sightings for last, and it is not unusual to encounter memorable interactions on this farewell drive, whether it is a pride of lions on the move, a browsing giraffe silhouetted against the dawn sky or a herd of elephants gathered at the water’s edge for a last drink.

After returning to the lodge, you enjoy a lingering breakfast in the bushveld air before saying your goodbyes to the Dulini team. You are then transferred back to Skukuza Airport for your flight to Johannesburg, where your safari honeymoon officially ends, but the shared memories, photographs and stories from Madikwe and Sabi Sand continue to travel home with you long after you have left the African continent behind.