Your journey begins with your arrival at Cape Town International Airport and a short transfer to Welgelegen House. This charming and intimate accommodation is located in the vibrant Kloof Street area of the city, a cosmopolitan corner of Cape Town with plenty of restaurants, boutiques, galleries and bars within easy walking distance.

A graceful and beautifully restored Victorian home, Welgelegen House is one of Cape Town’s ‘off-the-radar’ establishments, describing itself as an urban sanctuary. Its staff have a reputation for faultless service and it boasts a wide range of health and beauty therapies, including healing massages and flight-recovery packages to help you rejuvenate from your long-haul trip.

With beautiful views of Table Mountain and attractions such as the V&A Waterfront, Camps Bay and the Table Mountain cableway just a few minutes’ drive away, this is a tranquil haven with the oldest city in South Africa at your fingertips.

During your stay in Cape Town, included in the tour are two full-day tours of Cape Point and the peninsula and the Cape Winelands. You have two additional days to explore the city further. Your hosts are brimming with suggestions for making the most of what Cape Town has to offer; chat to them about anything from booking a humbling visit to Robben Island to up-to-date information on local artistic, culinary or cultural events. In peak summer months, the city’s famous urban beaches – Clifton and Camps Bay – will tempt those who enjoy some sand between their toes while those in need of a little retail therapy will find the V&A Waterfront the ideal diversion.

Bid farewell to the Mother City as you fly to OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg for the 2-hour flight to Livingstone in Zambia, where Chundukwa River Lodge on the storied Zambezi River will be your home for the next two nights.

This welcoming lodge sits on the riverbank nestled in the lush riverine vegetation. Each suite is on an elevated platform overlooking the Zambezi and its changing moods. Here, the serenity of the Zambezi River envelops you: enjoy a sunrise or sunset river cruise, enjoy a picnic while floating on the Zambezi or simply relax at the poolside and watch the waters flow by.

Yet not for nothing is Victoria Falls Africa’s adventure capital: there are many activities to choose from and the incredible spectacle of Victoria Falls is an astonishing sight not to be missed. This huge curtain of water – more than a kilometre across in peak season – is where the Zambezi River plunges over a precipice and into a roiling, rampaging gorge below. Such is the tremendous energy of the waterfall that its spray can be seen for miles around, giving it the pre-colonial name Mosi-au-Tunya or ‘The Smoke That Thunders’. Returning to the lodge in the evening, you will find it softly aglow in lantern light with the gentle whisper of the river in the background. A private dinner on your verandah features sumptuous cuisine, a fitting end to a beautiful day.

Leaving the Zambezi and Zambia behind, drive across the border into Botswana as you wend your way to the world-renowned Chobe National Park. In the May-to-October dry season, great numbers of animals make their way to the banks of the Chobe River, resulting in the highest concentration of elephants in the world. Your accommodation, Chobe Game Lodge, is the only riverside lodge located within the park and is set right on the bank of the river, tucked away under majestic trees.

After settling into your room, you have a range of activities to choose from. Game drives are a natural choice: the Chobe River area is famous for its lion prides that stalk the buffalo herds and prey on young or weak elephants; a kill is an astonishing sight to behold. Another fantastic way to explore is by motor boat, steered expertly along the teeming banks by your guide. Here you have the unique opportunity to watch animals as they come to the water to drink and the sight of a herd of elephants as they socialise at the river is one of the wonders of nature. The adults gently preside over the boisterous youngsters as they cavort and splash each other, often being dunked completely below the surface as they playfully wrestle their siblings and cousins. The interaction proves mesmerising, a spell broken only by the sharp trumpet of the matriarch as she announces the herd’s departure.

A more sedate water activity is a sunset cruise on a double-decker barge, offering grandstand seats to Chobe’s famous deep coral sunsets. Returning to the lodge as dusk settles and the first stars of the evening emerge, you enjoy a warming drink at the fireplace before a wonderful dinner is served on the terrace. Bathed in candlelight and serenaded by the sounds of the river, the magic of Africa embraces you.

After a breakfast overlooking the Chobe River, you’re tranferred to Kasane Airport where you will board your charter flight to Leroo La Tau Camp. Located on the banks of the Boteti River, this charming and intimate lodge sits on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, one of Botswana’s wild Kalahari Desert destinations.

After settling into your elegant and spacious tented suite, you set off on your first afternoon game drive with your guide. A huge, rolling landscape of grassland and salt pan opens up before you, watched over by a huge blue sky. The area is known for its seasonal concentrations of zebra and wildebeest and there are also plenty of predators to encounter. Lion, leopard, hyena and cheetah are found here all year round and the flat open landscape makes it relatively easy to see them, especially in early summer when the grazing herds have vulnerable newborns in their midst.

Selecting a scenic spot to stretch your legs, your guide produces a hamper packed with tasty sundowner drinks and snacks. With the sun settling, you sip on a cold drink and toast your first sunset in the desert wilderness. You continue the game drive back to camp using a sensitive spotlight to look for nocturnal animals as they emerge from the twilight. Glowing eyes in the dark reveal porcupines snuffling in the undergrowth and spotted genets leaping from branches like acrobats; an absolute highlight would be to spot the Kalahari’s smaller cats like caracal or serval out on a hunting foray.

Evenings in the camp are given over to convivial fireside stories and delicious dinners filled with conversation and laughter. After admiring the dusting of stars and trading the last of your stories of the day, you slip between cotton sheets, serenaded by the sounds of the Kalahari night.

After a last morning in the Makgadikgadi, fly to Camp Moremi in the Okavango Delta. As you fly over the Botswana wilderness, the huge, shimmering expanse of this pristine wetland comes into view. A grand mosaic of grasslands, tree islands, channels and lagoons opens out before you and, if you look closely, you can spot large animals below: herds of elephant, buffalo, hippo, giraffe and even clusters of seemingly-sedate crocodiles. Your guide meets you on landing and you take a game drive to get to Camp Moremi. You immediately notice that the wider diversity of habitats supports an astonishing array of life.

Arriving at Camp Moremi, you will the find the location hard to beat: sent on one of the Moremi Game Reserve’s best game-viewing areas and built under huge African ebony tress overlooking a lush lagoon, it is an undeniably romantic setting. After refreshing yourself in your suite and enjoying the view over the mirror-like water, you prepare for an afternoon’s sunset adventure in the wilds after a scrumptious high tea.

The open golden grasslands of Moremi make a suitable backdrop to the herds of grazing antelope you encounter, while elephants make their stately way through forested ‘tree islands’ and across seasonal water channels. The floodplains are home to the iconic red lechwe as well as yawning hippos and perfectly-still crocodiles, sunning themselves on sandy riverbanks. Birdsong fills the air, flashes of brilliant colour are identified as bee-eaters and hornbills, and it is not long before the piercing, haunting cry of the African fish eagle reminds you whose domain you are visiting.

Apart from the exhilarating game drives that are replete with photographic opportunities, you can also venture out into the Okavango Delta by motorboat or mokoro. The silvery waters make way for fields of dazzling water lilies and dense papyrus beds that provide shelter and life to creature from tiny bejewelled kingfishers and reed frogs to statuesque goliath herons.

After a final night in the Moremi, you wrap up your epic African adventure, feeling how the usual stress and worries have been replaced by laid-back contentedness. A short light aircraft flight takes you over the delta waterways back to Maun. On the flight from Maun to Johannesburg, allow the reminiscences of your trip to flood back: the eclectic culture and fine cuisine of Cape Town, the thrilling wildlife encounters in Botswana and the delightful romance of your island paradise on the Zambezi. Having experienced the wonders of this continent, you will return home with indelible memories of your African adventure.