 HIKING
 Hikers at Wolfberg Arch in the Cederberg ©South African Tourism With over 1,950 listed hikes, South Africa is a fantastic hiking destination. Hikes range from short day walks on the outskirts of cities to long wilderness excursions. South African National Parks, or SANParks, administers a number of hikes in the national parks, and many more wend their way through the provincial game reserves
and commercial forestry areas. All laid out hikes are signposted,
usually with painted icons on rocks, and most hiking authorities supply
maps. Most multi-day hikes offer accommodation in basic, but clean and
adequate, hiking huts that usually have a million-dollar view to go with the low rent facilities.  Spectacular hiking in the Drakensberg ©South African Tourism For
more experienced hikers, wilderness hiking is a bit more of a
challenge. With wilderness hiking, there are no laid out trails, no
hiking huts and no convenient little feet painted on the rocks to guide
you. You simply buy your permit, take a map and a compass - if you're
old-style, and a GPS if you're more technophilic - and head off. You're
on your own. Some of the better known wildernesses hiking areas are the
Cederberg and the Groot Winterhoek Mountains, both near Cape Town, the mysterious, mist-covered Wolkberg in Limpopo Province, and the huge and imposing Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal. The epitome of wilderness hiking is to do the Drakensberg Traverse - 300km of real wilderness hiking, high up in the mountains on the edge of the world.  Cederberg Wilderness ©South African Tourism If you're not really into roughing it, though, you'll love the relatively innovative concept of slackpacking.
These are catered and sometimes guided trails. Your gear is taken from
one overnight spot to the next by vehicle and you carry only a day
pack. Your food is cooked for you and you sleep in a real bed, with a
real bathroom, sometimes with a spa bath. Truly the best of both
worlds. Some of the better known slackpacking trails include the Dolphin Trail and the Oyster Catcher Trail, both on the Garden Route, the Hoerikwaggo Trail in the Table Mountain National Park in Cape Town, and the Whale Trail in De Hoop Nature Reserve in the Overberg region of the Western Cape. The Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape is renowned for its semi-slackpacking trails.  Tsitsikamma Trail ©South African Tourism Here there are fantastic hikes along the beaches,
skirting turquoise lagoons and wandering through traditional thatched
villages on rolling grassy hills. The best part, though, is that you
hike from hotel to hotel. The hikes are usually guided and you can
organise having your gear taken round by vehicle. A large number
of private land-owners are starting to get involved in the hiking
business, and many have wonderful trails, some with really characterful
accommodation in beautifully renovated farm buildings. Many of these
are multi-day hikes but there are also lots of great places where you
can stay in a comfy cottage and do a different hike every day for a
week.  Otter Trail viewpoint ©South African Tourism Beyond South Africa's borders there is some fantastic hiking in the montane grasslands of Malalotja National Park in Swaziland, some really hard core hiking in the desert gorges, river valleys and mountains of Namibia, and magnificent montane grassland hiking in Nyika, Zomba and Mulanje in Malawi. Hiking in Lesotho
consists of high mountain treks between villages and staying as the
guest of the local people, so it's far from luxurious but it's a truly
unique experience.  Olifants walking safari - Kruger ©South African Tourism Not usually considered hiking, as such, many of the game reserves and national parks offer escorted walking safaris on which you get to walk in big game territory. The best known areas for this physically not too demanding, but truly challenging, experience are the Kruger National Park, the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe and Zambia, and Kafue and the Luangwa Valley in Zambia.
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