lizwhit92

My husband and I recently booked flights to Capetown for next January, and are hoping to split our time between the Cape, Winelands and safari. We have looked into Yellow Zebra and love some of their itineraries, but are interested in exploring other operations that may be based in the U.S. or South Africa. Has anyone either used Yellow Zebra in the past, or has another agency they would recommend? Thanks!

KTtravel

I am sorry not to know of tour operators in S. Africa but, if you do a search here for trip reports or others also asking about S. Africa tours, you will likely find some good information.

xyz99

We used Southern Destinations back in 2015, and would recommend them. They were easy to work with and they arranged the itinerary and hotels, the safari lodges, etc. to fit our desires and budget. You'll love SA!

Heimdall

You really don’t need a tour for Cape Town, as it’s easy enough to hire a car or use local transport to get around the city, Boulders Beach for the penguins, Cape Point, etc. If you stay in the V&A Waterfront area the ferries to Robben Island leave from there, and Table Mountain is only a short Uber or hop on hop off bus ride away. Your hotel can help you with other sightseeing in the city.

For the winelands, you could either take a day trip from CT or stay a couple of nights in Stellenbosch or Franschhoek and visit the vineyards from there. I’ve never taken it, but Franschhoek has a wine tram that stops at various vineyards, or wine farms as they call them there.

I don’t have a suggestion for safaris, but if you look in the TripAdvisor South Africa forum there are lots of people from the USA, Europe, Australia and elsewhere who are serial safari goers who can give expert advice on where to go and which outfitters to book with.

A couple of random comments:

Cape Town gets very busy around the Christmas-New Year’s holidays and early January with people who come from all over South Africa as well as from other parts of the world. Later in January it isn’t so busy.

Plan your days for Table Mountain and Robben Island, if you wish to go there, as early in your stay as possible. It gets very windy sometimes in January, and strong winds will stop both the Table Mountain cableway and the Robben Island ferry.

TheTravelingLocals

Hi, We've been to South Africa several times now and Cape Town is our favorite city on the planet! We have also been on a few safaris, and I can recommend some.
We've only done safaris in the Kruger national park, so you'd have to fly over to the other side of SA, but it's worth it. We've also done safaris in Namibia, if you're interested I could post information on them as well.
In the Kruger, our first safari was with Jock Safari Lodge. The lodge includes your room (extremely nice), all food, airport transfer (from Skukuza) and a morning and evening game drive. The lodge is amazing and on most days we could watch elephants, kudu, rhinos and giraffes from breakfast or our rooms. During the game drives, we were lucky to see an incredible amount of animals, and many up close. It was truly an amazing experience.
The second Kruger safari agency I can recommend is Sentashya Safaris. Our field guide, Kim (she owns and operates this safari service) was amazing. She is local to the area and had a real talent for finding the animals.
Hope this helps!