Unforgettable South Africa: A Review of exoticca’s Tour

Introduction: While reviewing places is common on the internet it’s just not something we’ve paid much attention to.. That’s partly because, if you look, there’re a large number of sites where you can find thousands of valuable reviews including Trip Advisor, Google Maps and Expedia and we often use these as great references for researching a trip.. Recently, while involved in an online forum we realized that reviews could have a valuable place in The Intentional Travelers. Going forward our intent is not to dwell on a lot of reviews but to make note of only specific, exceptional discoveries and we are working on a process that would allow you, our subscribers and. visitors, to offer your finds as well (more to come).

Introduction

Over a year age The Intentional Travelers booked a tour of South Africa with exoticca (officially exoticca does not capitalize the e) and I thought I had posted a review – wrong! This was our third trip with with exoticca and we decided it shouldn’t have been left out . We’ve been traveling internationally for a couple of decades with an average trip taking several weeks to a month. Over most of that period we only took one organized tour and that was because we hadn’t been able to get the reservations and access we wanted on our own.

Not long ago travel friends asked if we wanted to join them on a tour to South America using exoticca and looking at the cost and what the tour offered it seemed like a bargain. The experience was great and well worth the cost.

Ten Days In South Africa With exoticca

The tour we selected was a ten day grand tour of South Africa with an extra four days in Cape Town, and right off I have to say it way exceeded our expectations.

Day 1 – A United flight from Florida to Johannesburg (often called just Joberg). Upon arrival we were checked into an airport hotel and advised that because of problems in Johannesburg we were skipping that destination tour. It seemed Joberg was having trouble keeping the electricity and water working.

Blyde River Canyon

Day 2 – Our group of 24 boarded a bus with our guide and headed off northeast toward Kruger National Park. There were a number of stops along the way that included Blyde River Canyon, South Africa’s Grand Canyon and God’s Window. Plenty of rest stops along the way. We arrived at the Nkambeni Safari Camp after sunset but in time for dinner. For more on glamping at Nkambeni Safari Camp click HERE. The camp is actually inside Kruger and of several accommodation options we lucked out with Nkambemi*.

Nkambeni Safari Camp

Day 3 and 4 – Each day we were up before sunrise and into our Guides Jeep. It was open air and the guide had blankets for everyone as it gets really cold at night but hot in the day. Kruger was incredible as we drove around looking for animals. There were so many animal sightings it hard to believe. Elephants, giraffes, impalas, hippos, zebras, lions and more. There’s a focus on finding the “big five” that includes the rhino and cheetah and the only one we missed was the cheetah. The park has a number of rest stops that include restaurants or snack bars and each morning and evening Nkambeni had prepared great meals for us.

Pretoria

Day 5 – Back on the bus for the trip south. Again there were a number of stops before we reached Pretoria for a city tour. After that we went to the airport for our flight to Cape Town where we were met and transferred to our hotel. The stay at the hotel included breakfast and you could buy dinner. The hotel bar is where everyone gathered in the evening to compare notes.

Downtown Cape Town

Day 6 to 10 – Cape Town was mostly on our own but exoticca included passes for riding the Red Bus (3 routes), the Cable Car to the top of Table Mountain and Kirstenbosch Gardens. There were also a number of optional tours available through exoticca. Cape Town is a really large city and the bus passes were a great help.

We had booked three extra days in Cape Town while a number of people in our tour group had added Victoria Falls to their trip. In our case while in Cape Town we arranged tours on our own to the Cape of Good Hope and out to South Africa’s wine country. We developed a fondness for South Africa’s own signature wine variety, cultivated there in 1925 as a cross between Pinot noir and Cinsaut.

Driving South from Cape Town

In closing we cannot emphasize enough how much we enjoyed this South Africa trip. The experience with exotica was great, the guides were incredible and the accommodations and food were above expectations. All in all an incredible value**.

*It seemed there were a number of accommodations for Kruger and we spoke to several people from other tours (one was another exoticca tour) where the stayed about an hours drive from the park entrances so we were very fortunate to stay at Nkambeni Safari Camp.

**As we’ve mentioned before, we have been used to making our own travel plans, but if we compare the cost of several of our exoticca*** trips to what we would have payed the savings is near 40%. Saving that much means more money for more travel.

***To be fair, we’ve thus far used exoticca but talking to other travelers there are a number of additional tour options that are comparable for service and price.

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