Destination Thumbnail Profi les - Explore

Travel magazines often provide thumbnail profi les on hotels and destinations around the world. Travel Africa is sharing some of those profi les of Africa destinations.

Explore. We hope you will fi nd some destinations that help you refi ne your plans for that next trip to the African continent.

CAIRO, EGYPT - St. Regis Cairo

Peace and calm defi ne Cairo’s latest high-end opening, where the double-glazed windows in guest rooms silence the nonstop action outside

on the Nile Corniche. Serenity also reigns at the refl ecting pools of the hotel’s Water Garden, where you can sip mint tea or a Bloody Mary made with hibiscus-infused vodka amid design details like arabesque lanterns and decorative mashrabyhas (windows covered with laticework). When it’s time to explore the city’s extraordinary histor, fuel up on some of Cairo’s best falafel at La Zisa - one of six restaurants on property - before heading off to experience the wonders of the new Egyptian Museum, Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and the Pyramids. The hotel can also arrange a speedboat up the Nile for scenes of palm groves, farms, and fi shermen, complete with a picnic breakfast on a verdant stretch of the riverbank.

Nicola Chilton, marriott.com, Travel and Leisure

SOUTH AFRICA - Kruger Shalati

Suspended high above the Sabie River, in an engineering feat that balances heritage status with sound environmental management, Druger Shalati feels like s total departure from conventional safarilodge style. The hotel is actually a repurposed train comprising 24 glass-walled rooms set on former rail tracks. Romantic touches, like maroon leather headboards and whimsical suite-numbering font, are complemented by vernacular notifs. A favorite example? Silky bathrobes commissioned from rising textile-design star Bonolo Chepape which riff on the bridge’s angular arches. I wore one during an inroom spa treatment during which I could admire hippos and elephants in the river below. I later set off on a game drive. As part of the hotel’s concession agreement, most of the guides and hospitality staff hail from communities surrounding the park. The commitment to economic impact and

The St. Regis also off ers an indoor and an outdoor pool.

Bar and lounge at Singita Pamushana

ngita Pamushana suite with private pool. | credit: courtesy of Singita, Travel and Leisure conceptual innovation is a welcome shake-up.

Melanie Van Zyl, krugershalati. com, Travel and Leisure

ZIMBABWE - Singita Pamushana Lodge

Singita has rightfully earned its stellar reputation for running the slickest safari properties in Africa, and Pamushana is no exception. Insiders choose the untrammeled, biologically diverse reaches of Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve’s 321,000 acres over and over again for long, immersive stays and private animal sightings. The terrain here is strikingly diff erence from other destinations in the region: deep-red soil, colossal boulders, 87 documented rock-art sites, and forests of ancient baobab trees. Even after several days of driving and walking with the excellent guides, spotting large herds of elephants and buff alo, wild dogs and big cats, there is never a sense that you’ve seen it all. A visit to nearby Kambako Cultural Village is essential. Hands-on and interactive, it’s a living museum of Shangaan culture. The lodge’s hilltop suites overlook Malilangwe Dam, where boat-based birding and fame fi shing add to the already long list of activities. Food is modern and sustainably sourced. One of the Malilangwe Trust’s initiatives is providing the seed funding fro small-scale producers of goods, including honey and eggs, which are then bought by Singita’s kitchens. It also supports equally visible community and conservation endeavors, from a school-feeding scheme to antipoaching patrols. This is a pioneering property for the future of Zimbabwe.

singita.com, Condé Nast Traveler

Space, miles and miles of space. Locals seem to revel in the sheer emptiness of Namibia, and they’re quick to drop into conversation the fact that, on average, there are only eight people per square mile there. Which is exactly why I keep coming back, fl ying from my home in Johanesburg, where we have more than 7,000 people per square mile.

I’ve been visiting Namibia for years, but lately-thanks in part to spending so much time in lockdown in South Africa-I’ve been drawn to the stark desert landscape of the Sossusvelei. Part of the NamibNaukluft Park, this wide swath of dunes and salt fl ats is fi lled with a type of desert adapted antelope called gemsbok as well as other wildlife. (The famously photographed Deadvlei, with its denuded trees and ocher dunes, is a short drive away.) Accommodations in this corner of the country have historically been simple, but that’s changed thanks to the recent addition of two new lodges and a just fi nished refurbishment of a luxury camp. In December, shortly after travel restrictions on entering Namibia were lifted, I set out to visit them.

The fi rst property was a study in social distancing with panache. Desert Whisper is a solitary onebedroom villa on a cliff top above the sands. A sister resort, the 65-room Namib Desert Lodge, is a 15-minute drive away, but I felt blissfully alone. As light fi ltered through windows punched in the structure’s curved weathered-steel shell, circles danced on the wooden fl oors, I bounced between the outdoor pool and the indoor reading nook, refi lling my glass of South African sparkling wine from the en suite bar. I left the wispy linen curtains open throughout my stay, content to drink in the endless views.

Seventy miles south, I checked in to Kwessi Dunes, inside the privately managed NamibRand Nature Reserve. This massive expanse abuts the Namib-Naukluft Park, and guests have the option to embark on adventures in either. I opted fi rst for a quad-biking trek through the private conservancy, led by veteran Namibian guide Gert Tsaobeb. Along the way, he pointed out various animal tracks - gemsbok, hyena, leopard - before we stopped for a break in the shade of some towering boulders.

Wildlife has blossemed in this stretch of seemingly uninhabitable desert, Tsaobeb told me, after a decades-long rewilding eff ort to convert what was once farmland back into wilderness. Thanks to a lack of light pollution, the NamibRand Nature Reserve is one of 18 certifi ed International Dark Sky Reserves in the world-and the only one in Africa.To take advantage, each of the 12 solar-powered chalets at Kwessi Dunes has an outdoor “star bed,” where guests can sleep