I started typing this while we were flying home from Doha, a 16 hour flight, which came after a 3 hour layover after a 9 hour flight from Johannesburg to Doha, which was after a 4.5 hour drive from Madikwe Game Reserve to Johannesburg. So the travel was pretty brutal (35 hours total!) but oh my god this was the greatest trip we’ve ever taken. Probably the greatest trip we’ll ever take.
I loved every minute and feel so incredibly lucky we got to experience all that we did, all together.
On the reality side, I have 700 unread work emails, dozens of unread personal texts, at least 200 unread messages in various GroupMe and Remind chat threads- oh and Cora got into the Gifted and Talented public magnet school we were really hoping for, which is AWESOME, except we found out yesterday and school starts Tuesday and she’s currently missing orientation and doesn’t have a schedule and we’ve never actually seen the school and I don’t know what the uniforms are or the bell schedule and I missed all the parent meetings because I didn’t know we’d be going there. Also, you know, I have all those work emails and a shit ton of presentations and deadlines and travel coming up.
But, South Africa? Absolutely fucking magical. Utterly extraordinary. I’ve never ever loved a trip more.
I’m really hoping to do a recap of each day, because I want to remember every moment, but I couldn’t even manage my daily Facebook posts while in Africa and that’s when I was ignoring my phone, home, laptop—and really all reality—entirely. So just in case it takes me a while to post each day, I’m going to throw a few of my favorite pictures here and give an overall recap.
I started planning this trip over a year ago. An African safari has been a lifelong dream and a dear friend and former partner at my old firm took her teenage kids to Eastern Africa last year, and then an associate took a similar trip for his honeymoon and their stories and pictures were top of mind as I started thinking about our 2025 adventure. James and my 20th wedding anniversary is September 3rd this year and Landon turned 18 this summer and is starting his senior year of high school, so it felt like there was a lot to celebrate.
James and I had discussed the fact that we didn’t want a couples’ trip for our big anniversary. Our time with our kids is our favorite and we’re so very aware that it’s growing increasingly short. And with Landon graduating next summer and swimming in college, we knew he might need to leave early to start training with his college team and we’d likely be moving him across the country and his summer season was going to be important, so I didn’t want to count on a big graduation trip next summer. Odds are, we’ll all go together to move him to California or some other coast, and that will be our family trip. Plus, by then I won’t be able to be in denial about how much his college tuition will cost, so this summer was better all around.
I worked with my friend Kaleigh with
The Shameless Tourist and as always, she and her team knocked it
out of the park. I gave her the dates (basically leaving the day after James and Landon’s championship meet and coming back right before school starts, threading a tight scheduling needle!), a budget, and just told her we wanted to do whatever we should do, indulge a little on lodging, avoid crowds and groups, and see as many animals as possible. I did zero other research, except to look up the average temperature of each location when we were going, and I truly can't imagine a better itinerary.
Days 1 & 2: Travel to South Africa. Fly to Doha, Qatar (15 hours). Five hour layover in Doha. Fly to Cape Town, South Africa (9 hours). Personal meet and greet at airport, private van to hotel:
The Commodore, in the V&A Waterfront where we could walk to restaurants and shops. We had two separate rooms and the hotel put a third bed in the kids' room, so that was great.
Day 3: Tour Cape Town. Private guide/driver.
Day 4: Cape Town wineries. Same guide (loved her!) and e-bike tour through wineries in the afternoon.
Day 5: Travel/Marakele Safari. Fly from Cape Town to Johannesburg (2 hours), drive to
Marakele National Park (90 mins?) and stay at
Marataba Safari Lodge. First game drive that afternoon!
Day 6: Marataba. Morning and evening game drives each day!
Day 7: Marataba.
Day 8: Travel/Madikwe Safari. Fly from Marakele National Park to
Madikwe Game Reserve (20 mins flight + 45 min drive) to stay at
Mateya Safari Lodge. Game drive that afternoon!
Day 9: Mateya. Morning and evening game drives each day!
Day 10: Mateya
Days 11 & 12: Travel Home. Drive to Johannesburg (4 hours). Fly to Doha (9 hours). Fly to Dallas (16 hours). Jump on work calls and then pass out at 6 pm.
I'm using this to dump all general thoughts, so here are a few more:
~ Go in the summer! It's their winter and the weather was perfect. It's a little wet in Cape Town, but it's dry season in the national parks and game reserves. We had bright blue skies and gorgeous clear weather every day. There were NO bugs, the snakes are generally hibernating, all the baby animals are EVERYWHERE, it's mating season so you get to see some fun animal flirting and mating dances, and it's COLD, which is such a welcome change from the hell of Dallas in summer. We never needed the sunscreen or bug spray I packed and my fuzzy Vince cashmere sweater was my #1 worn item. It was so so so perfect. Our guides told us a lot of horror stories about their summers, with the heavy rains, crazy bugs, and jeeps getting stuck in giant puddles and much of the reserve being blocked by overflowing rivers.
~ Packing. Everything is so casual. I brought one dress I never wore and sneakers and sandals I never wore either. My beloved super light, zip-up
Skechers hiking boots that I got for Egypt were the hero item I wore every single day (and they're on sale! I bought Claire a pair before our trip and she wore them every day too), along with fleece leggings or warm pants, a tank, sweater, vest, and puffer jacket. I could have used gloves and a warm hat, but we had blankets and warm water bottles in the jeep. We ate our meals straight from our safari game drives, so everything was super casual, and we pretty much passed out in bed immediately after that.
~ Meals. Speaking of food, it was so great! We loved everything we had in Cape Town (and gluten free was no problem! I even got a gluten-free crust at a pizza place one night) and the food at the safari lodges was all incredible. We'd get light snacks before our sunrise game drive, a big breakfast when we returned, lunch (that I usually skipped) about 2 hours later, high tea (with snacks!) a couple hours after that, then a big dinner when we returned from the sunset game drive. Oh and we also stopped for drinks and snacks midway through each am and pm game drive. It was amazing.
~ Weather. As noted above, it was cold! In the 30's in the mornings and evenings and then 50's or 60's during the day. I brought a skirt and some short-sleeve shirts I definitely never wore. Even at the height of midafternoon, long sleeves and pants were fine. It was so, so nice. (High in Dallas today = 102).
~ Money. I ordered some Rand (local currency) from our bank before we left (about $100 USD worth) and that was great to have for tips, but otherwise absolutely everywhere took credit cards or Apple pay. In fact, that was the preferred payment method. Once we got to the safari lodges we never spent any money at all since all food was included and there weren't any shops to visit (which was fine, because there really wasn't time between drives, eating, more eating, and sleeping). At both lodges we stayed in, you tipped when you departed, so you charged it on your credit card and told them how to allocate it. While the trip was expensive, I paid for it many months ago so this month's credit card bill is actually our lowest in a couple years. Turns out you don't spend much money when you don't have to buy groceries and don't have access to the internet to shop online.
It was just the perfect trip.
I've promised Landon he won't have to miss any swimming his senior year, and he'll have recruiting trips and other swim things throughout most of it, so for the first time in many years I don't have a single other trip planned for the future. We blew it all out on this one and I have no regrets. James and I had our own room/lodge at each stop on our itinerary, so we got lots of romantic alone time, which was lovely. The kids were also AMAZING and we had so, so much fun with them. At our last lodge we were the only guests (it only holds a maximum of 10 guests anyway, but it was pretty amazing to have the whole magnificent place to ourselves! Beyonce and Jay-Z stayed there you guys!!), we were eating a lovely dinner in the fancy dining room and were laughing and talking together and when I stepped out to use the restroom, the manager happened to be outside the door and she said, "I just have to say, you are such a lovely family... you just seem to really enjoy each other." and WE DO. And they just loved the trip so much too. The game drives were long and the travel was longer and there was no wifi the vast majority of the time, but man, they could not have been better or more fun traveling companions.
It's now Saturday and I slept for 12 hours last night, went through all my work emails, AND ran some errands with the girls and got many necessary school things, so I'm feeling much better about life. Hopefully I can write some travel posts today too!
