Eastern Cape Safaris

The Eastern Cape is a large province between Cape Town and Durban, renowned for its history, coast, and biodiverse flora and fauna. The province spans 500 miles of wild Indian Ocean coast that steadily rises into postcard-pretty mountain peaks and contains wilderness that supports the Big Five.

The Eastern Cape may live in the shadow of Kruger—South Africa’s star destination—but the safari experience is unique. Sweeping west to east across the province, the semi-arid Karoo terrain becomes increasingly lush. The same fertile plains and valleys that once supported thriving, pre-settlement populations of wildlife attracted European settlers who cleared and farmed broad swaths of the Eastern Cape. By the 1990s, energized private landowners were assembling to re-wild their farms and ranchland. (In some cases, they were the direct descendants of the original settler families.) Merging their acreages, they formed private game reserves committed to conservation. In collaboration with zoologists, ecologists, and global partners, many reserves have successfully restored biodiversity to the land, reintroduced wildlife, and are now managing the complexities of maintaining a delicate safari ecosystem. Some reserves are faring so well that their founder populations of rhino and cheetah are being translocated to other reserves in Africa.