First and foremost, consider this your formal invitation to join us on this trip. If you cannot physically be there, we invite you to join us virtually on this blog. We have prepared an itinerary to let everyone know where we will be traveling and the approximate timeline for each portion of our trip. We have spent many hours of research finding ways to get the most out of our travel and which locations are the ones that we should spend the most time. If you would like to plan a trip to join us in South Africa/Madagascar or your own adventure later, please let us know. We are happy to answer any questions about why we made some of our selections and share any information that we have gathered.

Without further ado here is our Travel Itinerary:

January 23- February 9- Cape Town, South Africa. We’ll be staying in various places throughout Cape Town during this time period. We’ll be visiting the wine country of Stellenbosch, enjoying the beaches in Muizenberg, trying to squish penguins at Boulder Beach, venturing to the Cape of Good Hope, and generally experiencing life under Table Mountain. We must not forget about sailing either, our trip overlaps the Mid-Summer Fling Regatta out of Royal Cape YC.

Cape Town

February 10- February 22- Garden Route, South Africa. We’ll be visiting the town of Knysna and the Knysna heads, which are large cliffs at the lagoon’s entrance to the ocean known for generating treacherous sea conditions. We will move our way east along the rugged coastlines that resemble something like the northern California. The Garden Route is known for beautiful hiking trails covered with coastal pine rain forests and beautiful natural scenery. We are planning a hike through the areas around Garden Route National Park.

Garden Route

February 23- February 28- Sunshine Coast, South Africa. J-Bay or Bust! We’ll be testing (and hopefully improving) our surfing skills on one of the most world’s renowned surfing spots. We’re very excited to check out all that this surftown and it’s coast have to offer. After J-Bay, we’ll be heading to Port Elizabeth for a few days to experience one of the largest cities in South Africa.

Sunshine Coast

March 1-March 10- Wild Coast, South Africa. We’ll be staying in Coffee Bay and the surrounding area. The Wild Coast known for pristine beaches, beautiful landscapes in a extremely rich cultural heritage. Here we’ll be experiencing the Xhosa tribal way of life and doing some surfing in the many secluded coves that are carved out of the rolling coastline.

Wild Coast

March 11- April 1- KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. We’re making our way north along the coast from Durban to commence our safari portion of the trip! KZN as it is abbreviated hosts some of the largest and oldest wildlife preserves in all of South Africa. Here we will be staying and visiting game reserves and viewing as much wildlife as we can set our eyes on. The parks in this area host the ‘Big 5’ which is the grand slam for game viewing in Southern Africa (Lion, African Elephant, Cape Water Buffalo, African Leopard, Rhinos). There is also the possibility of doing some diving in Sodwana Bay, a place made famous for the recent discoveries of the thought to be extinct Coelacanth.

KwaZulu Natal

April 7- May 26- Nosy Be and Nosy Komba, Madagascar. We’ll be staying and helping for six weeks at Madagascar Research and Conservation Institute. We’ll be doing lots of diving with the Institute during the week, hunting for exotic chameleons and playing with lemurs on the weekends. 2 weeks will be spent aboard their 50 ft catamaran touring the local islands and villages.

Nosy Be, Madagascar

After Madagascar we’ll be heading back to Johannesburg where we must evaluate our funds to see if further travel is possible. Otherwise, we plan to return to the States around in early June 2015. Check out our interactive map of where we’ll be for our trip. We’ll be updating this map as we go with more details about the place we go and the things that we experience.