Eighty days down the length of Africa, from the pyramids of Cairo to the cape of South Africa, following the Nile and the Great Rift Valley through eight countries.
30°02′N 31°14′E → 33°55′S 18°25′E
Africa is, in a geological sense, coming apart. The Great Rift Valley is the seam — a 6,000-kilometre fracture where the continent is slowly tearing in two, and along which our oldest ancestors first stood upright. The Great Rift follows that line from top to bottom, the long way down.
This is our journey of deep time and open horizon. It begins in Cairo, with the only surviving Wonder of the ancient world, and runs south up the Nile, into the green roof of the Ethiopian highlands, across the Serengeti at the height of the migration, past the thunder of Victoria Falls and the red dunes of the Namib — ending eighty days later at the Cape of Good Hope, where two oceans meet.
It travels by river boat, by light aircraft over country roads cannot reach, by the great trains of southern Africa, and on foot in the parks. Eighty days is enough to feel the continent change beneath you — desert to highland to savannah to fynbos — and to understand that Africa is not a place but a procession of them.
Cairo, Egypt → Cape Town, South Africa
Scroll east through every leg of the route — drag, swipe or use the arrows. Each chapter is a place, a story, and where you sleep.
Days 1–7The journey opens beneath the Pyramids of Giza — the last of the Seven Wonders still standing, raised some 4,500 years ago on the edge of the Western Desert. Days move between the Old Kingdom necropolis of Memphis, the stepped pyramid of Saqqara and the treasure halls of the city’s museums, where Tutankhamun’s gold waits.
Days 8–16South along the river that made Egypt possible, sailing several unhurried days by traditional dahabiya between Luxor and Aswan. The temples of Karnak, the painted tombs of the Valley of the Kings and the rescued colossi of Abu Simbel pass at the pace of the current — the oldest journey in tourism, still the most humbling.
Days 17–28A flight clears the Sahara and the swamps of South Sudan to land in the cool green highlands of Ethiopia — a country that kept its own calendar, alphabet and ancient church. At Lalibela, eleven medieval churches stand carved downward into the living rock, hewn entire from the bedrock in the 12th and 13th centuries and still alive with pilgrims and incense.
Days 29–40Down into the heart of the Rift and onto the short-grass plains of the Serengeti, timed for the great migration — well over a million wildebeest and several hundred thousand zebra moving in a single restless herd. Days are spent following the columns by open vehicle and dawn balloon, with lion, cheetah and the crocodile-thick Grumeti River never far.
Days 41–48East to the Ngorongoro Crater — the world’s largest intact volcanic caldera, a collapsed cone twenty kilometres wide whose walls hold an entire ecosystem like a bowl. Some 25,000 large animals graze the crater floor, among them the black rhino, and a short drive away the layered sediments of Olduvai Gorge hold the footprints of the first humans.
Days 49–58The Zambezi pours off a basalt lip more than 1,700 metres wide and 100 metres down — the largest sheet of falling water on Earth, known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, ‘the smoke that thunders’. Time is split between the Zambian and Zimbabwean banks, with quiet upstream channels, river sunsets and the spray-fed rainforest at the rim.
Days 59–70West into the oldest desert on the planet, where at Sossusvlei the dunes climb above 300 metres in burnt apricot and rust. Dawn light is the great event — long shadows on the sand sea, the white clay pan of Deadvlei with its 900-year-old skeleton trees, and nights under a sky as dark and crowded as any on Earth.
Days 71–80The journey ends where the continent does, beneath the flat sandstone wall of Table Mountain. Days run from the penguin colonies and the lighthouse at the Cape of Good Hope to the vineyards of Stellenbosch and the fynbos of the world’s smallest, richest floral kingdom — the length of Africa, finally, behind you.
| Begins | Cairo, Egypt |
|---|---|
| Ends | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Duration | 80 days — travelled in modules with rest days built in |
| Best season | June to October, the southern dry season for the best game viewing |
| Fitness | Moderate. Early starts and long game drives; gentle walking, no trekking required |
| Group size | Private, or small group of up to 10 |
| Included | All lodges and hotels, the Nile dahabiya, internal flights and rail, guides, park fees, most meals, visa support |
Moderate — long, varied, with early starts on safari days
June to October — the southern dry season
From €68,000 per person
Comprehensive — hotels, internal travel, guiding, permits. International flights quoted separately.
No. The Great Rift is built as five modules of one to two weeks each — Egypt and the Nile, the Ethiopian highlands, the Tanzanian parks, Victoria Falls and the Namib, and the Cape. Many travellers join for a single module and return for the rest in another year. The full eighty-day journey is the complete arc, but it is not all-or-nothing.
Departures are scheduled for the southern dry season, June to October. This is when the wildebeest migration is on the Serengeti plains, when game gathers at shrinking waterholes, when the southern skies are clear over the Namib, and when the heat in Egypt has eased. It is the optimal window for the journey as a whole.
Routing avoids regions under travel advisory, and every leg is escorted by Viajes Globales staff and vetted local guides. Yellow fever vaccination and malaria prophylaxis are required for the equatorial parks; our team sends a full medical brief on booking, and comprehensive evacuation insurance is mandatory and easily arranged.
Most of it is overland — river boat on the Nile, safari vehicles in the parks, and the classic trains of southern Africa. Light aircraft are used only where they genuinely earn their place: the long hop south from Egypt over the Sahara, and short flights between remote bush airstrips that no road usefully connects.
Very much so. Around half of our travellers come solo. The small-group departures are sociable without being relentless, single rooms are available throughout, and there is no forced-pairing single supplement on group dates. Safari camps are particularly easy and welcoming for those travelling alone.
Take the full arc, or a single chapter of it. Either way, the conversation is the first step.