On Our Radar
What has opened, what has changed, and what is worth knowing before you go.
The region in brief
02South Africa
South Africa Now Requires a Digital Traveller Declaration
Since 1st July 2026, everyone entering or leaving South Africa by air, land, sea or rail must complete an online traveller declaration before starting their journey, submitted no more than 24 hours before departure. The requirement is part of the South African Traveller Management System, piloted since 2022 and now mandatory at all ports of entry. Travellers carrying cash or goods above R100,000 must declare them through the same system. It is a five-minute task, but an unfamiliar one, and it is catching travellers out at check-in. Complete it the day before you fly, keep a digital and printed copy of the confirmation, and build it into your routine for every crossing, including overland borders on multi-country itineraries. South Africa's arrivals are running nearly thirteen per cent up on last year. The paperwork has simply gone digital to match.
23 Sept 2026
The region
Getting to the Region Keeps Getting Easier
Two new intercontinental routes opened Southern Africa's map this season. LATAM began flying Cape Town to São Paulo three times a week in July, restoring a direct South American link and opening one-stop connections across Latin America. Air Europa launched three weekly Madrid to Johannesburg services in June, adding direct Spanish access with onward connectivity across Europe. Together with FlyNamibia's doubled Victoria Falls frequencies, the region enters the second half of 2026 more connected than it has been in years. The routes follow the demand: South Africa welcomed over 4.7 million international visitors between January and May, up almost thirteen per cent on 2025.
23 Sept 2026
Beyond the region
05Morocco
Morocco Has Become Africa's Most Visited Country
Morocco welcomed 19.8 million tourists in 2025, a 14 percent increase on 2024 and ahead of the government's own target, making it Africa's most visited destination for the year, ahead of Egypt's 19 million arrivals. The growth is being driven by new air routes, a generous visa-free entry policy now covering 74 countries, and a deliberate push to move visitors beyond Marrakech into the Atlas Mountains, the Atlantic coast and the deep south. Morocco is targeting 26 million tourists by 2030, when it co-hosts the FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal. If you have not been since before 2022, the country has changed considerably. Go before the World Cup crowds arrive.
23 Sept 2026
Morocco
Marrakech Is Getting Noisier. The Rest of Morocco Is Not.
The medina and the rooftop bars and the famous hotels are as good as ever, but the country's most interesting travel is now happening elsewhere. The Draa Valley in the south, where kasbahs rise from palm groves above a river that barely reaches the sea, is almost empty of foreign visitors. The Souss-Massa coast between Agadir and Tiznit has some of the best Atlantic surf in Africa and a fraction of the infrastructure that drives prices up elsewhere. Essaouira remains what it has always been: a wind-battered, blue-walled port city on the Atlantic that operates entirely on its own terms. Morocco rewards the traveller who arrives with a car and no fixed plan.
23 Sept 2026
Kenya
Wilderness Is Moving Into Kenya
Wilderness, the luxury safari operator best known for its Southern African properties, opened its first Kenya camp in June, launching Wilderness Mara in the Mara Triangle with twelve suites focused on the Great Migration, with two ultra-private villas along the Mara River to follow. The operator already has properties in Rwanda and Tanzania, and the Kenya opening completes a circuit linking the continent's most sought-after wildlife destinations under a single brand. For travellers combining Southern and East Africa in one trip, this changes the options considerably.
23 Sept 2026
Rwanda
Rwanda's Gorillas Are Harder to Book Than Ever
Demand for gorilla trekking permits in Rwanda has outpaced supply for three consecutive seasons. Volcanoes National Park issues a limited number of permits each day, and the lodges that provide best access, including Bisate, Singita Kwitonda and the recently opened Wilderness Bisate Reserve, are booking twelve to eighteen months ahead for peak season. If Rwanda is on your list for 2026, the window to act has already passed for high season. Look at the short rains season between October and November: the forest is lush, permits are more available, and the mountain light is extraordinary.
23 Sept 2026
Kenya
Kenya Has Raised Its Park Fees. Know Before You Go.
From July 2026, non-resident adults will pay $200 per day to enter the Masai Mara, double the $100 rate that applied in the first half of the year. The fee change caught operators off guard when it was announced and continues to catch independent travellers out. Permits are now valid for twelve hours rather than twenty-four, meaning camps outside the reserve boundary pay a fresh fee on every calendar day they drive in. Check the current rates with your operator before confirming any booking. The Mara is worth every dollar. Know what you are paying.
23 Sept 2026
Five worth knowing
05
Botswana
Mokoro at Dawn, Okavango Delta
A mokoro, the traditional dugout canoe of the Okavango, is the only way to move through the delta's shallow channels at first light. Papyrus walls close over you. The guide poles in silence. Fish eagles call from somewhere ahead. Several operators in the delta offer dedicated mokoro experiences away from the main game-drive programme, and in a high-flood year like 2026 the channels are deeper and wider than they have been in three decades. Request one specifically and ask your operator to schedule it for dawn. It is one of the quieter and more disorienting experiences the region offers, in the best sense.
23 Sept 2026
South Africa
Singita Lebombo, Kruger National Park
Thirteen contemporary glass-walled suites suspended above the N'wanetsi River, each inspired by the eagles' nests built into the cliff face of the riverbank, open onto elevated wooden decks where guests may sleep under nothing but a mosquito net and the stars. The 33,000-acre private concession in the southeastern reaches of the Kruger traverses four distinct eco-zones, giving the wildlife here a diversity that single-habitat reserves cannot match. The architecture is precise and quietly radical. This is among the most compelling rooms in Africa.
23 Sept 2026
Cape Town
FYN, Cape Town
FYN was named Restaurant of the Year at the 2026 Eat Out Awards, with judges describing it as a world-class dining experience defined by precision, creativity and balance. Chef Peter Tempelhoff and culinary director Ashley Moss have built the restaurant around a single demanding idea: South African ingredients expressed through a Japanese lens. Not fusion, but a sustained dialogue between two culinary traditions, conducted on the fifth floor of a City Bowl building with Table Mountain visible through floor-to-ceiling glass. It is the only restaurant on the African continent to hold a three-star Food Made Good rating and has appeared on the World's 50 Best extended list for five consecutive years. Book before you land.
23 Sept 2026
South Africa
Luke Dale Roberts at Tswalu, Northern Cape
Chef Luke Dale Roberts has announced plans to open a destination restaurant at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in late 2026, describing it as the most ambitious project of his career since launching The Test Kitchen in 2010. The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is already one of the most compelling conservation stories in Southern Africa, spanning 118,000 hectares of rewilded Kalahari desert where the Oppenheimer family has spent decades restoring native species to former farmland. A world-class kitchen inside that landscape, focused on sustainability and local ingredients and built with full creative intent, is the kind of thing this region has been ready for. Watch this space. Book Tswalu now while the restaurant announcement is still quieter than it should be.
23 Sept 2026
Mozambique
Gorongosa, Mozambique
Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique was one of Africa's great wildlife reserves before two decades of civil war reduced it to almost nothing. The recovery, driven by a long-term partnership between the Mozambican government and the Carr Foundation, is now widely regarded as one of the most successful rewilding efforts on the continent. Lion, elephant, buffalo and wild dog populations have all returned. The park's terrain, centred on the floodplains of the Urema Valley and rising into the rainforest of Mount Gorongosa, offers a landscape that differs entirely from the classic savanna safari. It remains almost entirely absent from premium travel itineraries. The reader who goes this year goes before that changes.
23 Sept 2026