By Lynette McDonald, Co-founder of Wine & Wild
The year I turned fifty, the house went quiet for the first time in decades.
My youngest, Aimee, had just left for university, and so the school runs and the client meetings and the dinner preps, the whole beautiful, chaotic hum of a household running entirely on my energy, all of it went suddenly still. I was not sad, exactly. I felt more like a vase that had held the most glorious blooms for years and now sat empty on the mantel, wondering what came next.
What came next, as it turned out, was the best trip of my life. It is also the reason Wine & Wild exists at all.
Four Women, One Milestone, and Zero Excuses
Three of my oldest friends, women who have known me since bad perms and worse decisions were both perfectly acceptable, were turning fifty that same year. We did not deliberate for long. We packed our bags, clinked our glasses, and took ourselves off on a women’s road trip through the Western Cape of South Africa, just the four of us, with no husbands to consult and no children to feed.
And it was, hands down, the most fun any of us had had in years. This is the thing nobody tells you about women travelling together once the years of putting everyone else first are behind you: the laughter comes back, and it comes back loud.
Where We Went: A Western Cape Road Trip Itinerary for Women
Somerset West: Raise a Glass to Yourself
We began at Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West, because a celebratory tasting at one of South Africa’s oldest and most storied Wine farms felt like the right way to mark the occasion. The whole afternoon set the tone for everything that followed: elegant, unhurried, and entirely ours. There is a word for the feeling of lingering at a table long after the glasses are empty, talking to the women you have shared the day with. The Spanish call it sobremesa, and we found it on the very first afternoon.
Clarence Drive: The Coastal Road Nobody Talks About Enough
The next morning we set off along Clarence Drive, and if you have never driven this route, add it to the top of your list right now.
Clarence Drive is often overshadowed by the more famous Chapman’s Peak Drive, yet it has quietly been recognised as one of the finest coastal roads in the world. The route runs for twenty-one kilometres from the small naval village of Gordon’s Bay to the seaside hamlet of Pringle Bay, threading between the peaks of the Hottentots Holland mountains on one side and the open ocean on the other. There are seventy-seven bends along the way, four of them tighter than 150 degrees, so this isn’t a road for anyone in a hurry. The winding terrain asks you to slow down, lean back, and look, which is rather the point of the whole exercise. We pulled over constantly for photographs, and we laughed until we ached over stories from our teenage years that will never make it into print.
A tip for women travelling the Cape coast: skip the crowds at Boulders Beach and stop at Betty’s Bay instead, where the resident penguin colony is just as charming, the crowds are thinner, and there isn’t an entry fee.
We wound our way through Betty’s Bay and Kleinmond and made a beeline for the Arabella Spa, because an afternoon of treatments, sparkling wine, and deep belly laughs with your oldest friends is medicine, not an indulgent luxury. That evening we checked into our hotel in Hermanus, the whale-watching capital of the world. Our hotel’s location was nothing short of spectacular, perched on a cliff overlooking the Ocean with views across Walker Bay and in walking distance to shops and restaurants.
Arniston: Where Time Slows Right Down
From Hermanus we travelled further south to Arniston, one of the Western Cape’s prettiest villages and one of very few places in South Africa with two official names. Arniston remembers the British ship wrecked off this wild stretch of coast in 1815, while its Afrikaans name, Waenhuiskrans, means “Wagon House Cliff”, a nod to the sea cave nearby that is large enough to shelter a full wagon and its team of oxen.
We stayed at the iconic Arniston Hotel, ate the freshest seafood imaginable, and indulged in yet more spa treatments that left us feeling rejuvenated and restored. At low tide we walked the beach to the Waenhuiskrans cave itself, a natural wonder that most international visitors never even discover.
What We Promised Each Other, and Why You Should Too
After a few days together we felt refreshed, recalibrated, and entirely ourselves again. So we made a pact, right there on the beach: we would do this at least every two years, because every five felt far too long to wait.
We talk endlessly about investing in property and in our children’s futures, and yet so few of us ever ask when we last invested in ourselves, in our own joy and curiosity and sense of adventure. After years of showing up for everyone else, of navigating the triumphs and the heartbreaks and the sheer beautiful exhaustion of a well-lived life, a journey designed purely for you becomes essential. It is the difference between merely existing and properly thriving.
How That Trip Became Wine & Wild
That road trip is exactly what we now create for women at Wine & Wild, with one important difference: you don’t have to organise a single thing, and you don’t need three friends who happen to be free.
We design small-group, women-only travel experiences across South Africa, built for solo female travellers who want the camaraderie and the spontaneity of travelling with like-minded women, without the planning, the logistics, or the worry. From the moment your flight lands, your transfers are arranged, your lodges are chosen, and your guides know every road and every vineyard. All you have to decide is whether you would like a Chenin Blanc or a Pinotage with dinner. For many women, the question of whether South Africa is a safe place to travel alone is what has held them back for years, and the women-only environment answers it quietly and completely: you arrive on your own, and within a day you are in the easy company of women who simply get it.
Our signature tour pairs the two sides of this country we love. There is the Cape, with its winelands, its coastline, and its long golden afternoons, and there is Kruger, with its Big Five game drives, its sundowners, and a silence at dusk you will think about for years afterwards. Wine and wild, refined and raw, in a single trip.
I have watched women arrive a little weary, perhaps a little unsure of what they are even looking for, and I have watched those same women leave with a sparkle back in their eyes. Somewhere between a game drive and a wine tasting, they find a piece of themselves they thought was long gone. That is what travel does when it is done properly.
So here is my question for you: when did you last invest in the most important asset you own, which is your own vibrant, complex, and thoroughly deserving self?
We would love to help you answer it.
Book a free discovery call → Tell us where you want to go, and we will take it from there. We answer every enquiry personally, with no commitment and no pressure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is South Africa safe for solo female travellers?
Yes, and the right structure makes all the difference. Most women who worry about travelling here on their own find that the concern lifts the moment everything is handled by people who know the country. On a Wine & Wild tour you are in a women-only group with experienced local guides from arrival to departure, so your transfers, lodges, and routes are arranged before you land, and you are never navigating a new place alone.
Can I join a women-only tour on my own, or do I need to bring friends?
You can absolutely come on your own, and most of our guests do exactly that. The whole idea behind Wine & Wild is that you arrive solo and travel in the easy company of like-minded women, so you get the friendship and the spontaneity of women travelling together without having to round up three friends who all happen to be free at the same time.
When is the best time of year for a Western Cape road trip?
The Cape is glorious from roughly October to April, when the days are long and warm and the winelands are at their best. Whale season along the Hermanus coast runs from June to November, so if seeing southern right whales from the cliffs is on your list, plan around the cooler months and pack a light jacket for the evenings.
What is included in a Wine & Wild tour?
Our tours are designed to be handled end to end, which means accommodation in characterful lodges and hotels, transfers and transport throughout, expert guiding, wine tastings, game drives on the safari portion, and many of your meals. We share a full inclusions list on your discovery call, so you know exactly what is covered before you commit to anything.
How many women travel on each tour?
We keep our groups small and boutique on purpose, because a smaller group means real conversation, genuine friendships, and the kind of table you never want to leave. It also means we can stay flexible and personal in a way that larger coach tours simply cannot.
Can I combine the Western Cape with a Kruger safari?
Yes, and we would encourage it. Our signature tour pairs the wine and coastline of the Cape with the wild beauty of Kruger in a single trip, so you experience both sides of South Africa: the refined and the raw. Tell us how much time you have, and we will shape an itinerary around it.
Wine & Wild creates women-only tours of South Africa for solo female travellers and small groups, combining the winelands and coast of Cape Town with the wild beauty of Kruger. Explore our women’s tours of South Africa.