When to go to South Africa

Our Guide on When to Visit South Africa

South Africa is a large country with a wide variety of habitats and biodiversity. The northwest of the country borders Namibia and is a desert, which becomes semi-arid as you head south. The northern and eastern part of the country is dominated by savanna and grasslands. In the Western Cape, there is the rare fynbos vegetation, this is the only place in the world it exists. The diversity of the landscape is staggering, there are mountains, forest, rivers, lagoons, deserts, and wine lands. To understand the weather patterns is helpful to split the main destinations into two parts:

Northern South Africa: This includes The Kruger Park, Madikwe Game Reserves and Johannesburg

Southern South Africa: This includes Cape Town, The Garden Route and the Eastern Cape Game Reserves.

Cape Town and the Garden Route follow a more Mediterranean climate with long hot dry summers and cold rainy winters. The north and east of the country have dry warm winters and hot rainy summers.

South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere so the seasons are the reserve of Europe and the USA. To decide when the best time to go is, South Africa needs to be split into sections as the climate varies between regions. It can be tricky to balance the weather as the best time to go to Cape Town is not the best time in Kruger and vice versa. When you go also depends on what you would like to see and do, for example, whale watching peaks between June and November.