The Ultimate African Honeymoon
Your honeymoon is the best time to splurge on a vacation that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. A proper itinerary should include plenty of downtime to recover from your wedding, along with a healthy dose of adventure to bring you closer to your new spouse. If someone were to ask us to design the ultimate spare no-expense honeymoon, this is the trip we would create. It combines Botswana, the world’s best wildlife destination, with the Seychelles, one of the world’s best beach destinations, into an epic trip that lasts almost three weeks.
If someone were to ask us to design the ultimate spare no expense honeymoon, this is the trip we would create.
Fauna only books the best lodges and camps for our itineraries to ensure that you have an inspiring travel experience. Contact us to customize this to your preferences, dreams, and room availability.
✧ Your custom travel playlist includes Letta Mbulu’s “Nomaliso”
Letta Mbulu is one of South Africa’s most prominent singers. While in exile during Apartheid, she worked with big names such as Quincy Jones and Harry Belafonte. “Nomalizo” has an infectious African R&B rhythm to get you excited about your romantic adventure.
The first stop on your honeymoon is Cape Town, one of the most scenic and culturally vibrant cities in the world. We suggest taking a direct international flight so that you don’t waste any energy on layovers. This stop is your time to have a massage and decompress from the wedding. Your stay in the city will be followed by a short trip to the Cape Winelands for wine and fine dining in an idyllic pastoral setting.
Day 1: Arrive in Cape Town in the afternoon. Settle into your room, followed by a massage at the spa and dinner at the hotel restaurant. There are many great hotels in the city, but we like the stunning waterfront Silo Hotel or the more intimate Ellerman House best.
Day 2: Take a day to explore the city. Cape Town has one of the best food scenes around, and culinary tours are available. Alternatively, there are plenty of hiking trails near the city, including the iconic Table Mountain.
Day 3: Take a one-hour transfer to Babylonsoren, your hotel in the Cape Winelands. The luxury farm hotel is known for its massive gardens, which can be explored for most of the day, followed by a delicious dinner.
Day 4: Spend the day exploring vineyards and drinking South African wine. We suggest borrowing a bike from the hotel and riding between tastings.
The next phase of your honeymoon ventures into the wilds of Botswana. Start with the vast dry Makgadikgadi Salt Pans and one of the most stylish camps in Africa, Jack’s Camp.
Day 5: Transfer to the Cape Town airport for your Flight to Maun, Botswana. From Maun take another short hop to Jacks’s Camp airstrip. Spend the rest of the day in the romantic pool or tea tents.
Day 6: Take a drive to explore the salt pan to see some of the rare desert wildlife. Habituated meerkats will gladly use your head as a high perch to watch out for predators from. During the short rainy season, the pan comes alive, and herds of plains game can be seen.
Day 7: Spend the morning meeting the San people, the original inhabitants of the area, and one of the world’s oldest cultures. Unwind at camp in the afternoon to prepare for a sleepout under the stars that will blow you away.
✧ We’ve sent you some reading material including, The Elephant Whisperer
The Elephant Whisperer is a safari memoir set in South Africa–not Botswana. However, its heartwarming stories about elephant life and the trials of starting up a lodge with your family are just the right tone for sharing with your partner on a safari honeymoon. View on Amazon
Botswana is famous for its wildlife, and the Selinda Private Reserve is one of the best places to view it. The reserve is located east of the Okavango Delta along a seasonal spillway. The adjacent Chobe National Park has the largest density of elephants on earth, so elephant viewing at Selinda is excellent. Great Plains only operates a few camps in the reserve, so you will feel like you have the landscape all to yourself.
Day 8: Wake up at Jack’s camp and board a private charter to the Selinda Private Game Reserve, located between the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park. Start at Selinda Camp, a luxurious open-air camp, with private plunge pools.
Day 9: Take a game drive around the Selinda reserve to see lions, wild dogs, leopards, and large herds of buffalo and elephants.
Day 10: After breakfast, take a boat ride 45 minutes down the spillway to Zarafa Camp, a Great Plains reserve-level camp, and one of the most luxurious tents in Botswana. Spend the afternoon on a game drive or watching wildlife from your private pool.
Day 11: Spend today on game drives, or try out a walking safari if you are feeling ready to take your safari a little deeper. End the day with a romantic pontoon boat sundowner on the Zibadianja Lagoon.
Day 12: Spend your final day in Botswana on an epic helicopter tour over the Okavango Delta. Stop at Elephant Havens, a respected elephant orphanage in the delta, to meet the babies and learn about this important conservation project.
Every romantic safari demands some beach time to relax after your time “roughing it” in the bush. The Seychelles, located 1,600 miles off mainland Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the perfect remote tropical beach destination. North Island is a rustically luxurious private island resort surrounded by blue water, massive boulders, and tall palms lining a white sand beach. Because of the flight timing, an overnight in Johannesburg is needed, but we see that as an opportunity to stay at another great hotel.
Slow down a little. This part of your honeymoon has no agenda, except for relaxing and doing whatever you might feel inclined to do on a private island.
Day 13: Wake up at Zarafa and take a short bush plane ride to Maun for another flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. Overnight in Johannesburg at the luxurious Saxon hotel and rest up for your flight to the Seychelles the following day.
Day 14: Take a four-hour flight to the Seychelles from Johannesburg in the afternoon. North Island can be reached via a 20-minute helicopter ride from the Mahé airport. Spend the afternoon walking on the beach or unwinding by the pool.
Day 15-17: Slow down a little. This part of your honeymoon has no agenda, except for relaxing and doing whatever you might feel inclined to do on a private island. There is excellent snorkeling, boating, and hiking if you’re feeling active. It’s also an ideal place to just read a book on the beach or watch a movie together in the comfort of your room.
Day 18: Take a helicopter back to Mahé for your flight back home, via Europe of the Emirates.
✧ Consider adding an additional story element to your trip.
This is your time, so try tuning out the world as much as you can. By all means, let your family know you have arrived safely, but Instagram can wait until you get home. It’s also easy to get caught up in taking a ton of pictures of your honeymoon, but you can live in the moment more by keeping a journal together instead. At the end of each day take note of any moments of awe, personal reflection, connection, or even little details or quotes you’d like to remember. This will make for a good discussion over dinner. Also, make a point of asking the people you meet in each place about their partners and families and take note of that too. What is most important to them and do they have any wisdom for you?
We combine expert knowlege with creative itineraries to make your travel dreams a reality. Contact us for a free consultation.