7 days · 6 nights
A Cape Honeymoon
Seven days, two people, and a guide who knows when to disappear.
Fewer decisions, not more destinations.
The Cape in the European winter, a wine valley you can walk across, and a stretch of coast where the whales come in under the cliff path. All of it arranged in advance so that neither of you has to arrange anything.
A honeymoon is the one trip where the brief is not "see more". Our honeymoon itineraries have three stops in seven days, roughly half the scheduled hours of a family trip, and every table, cellar and transfer booked before you land.
The mistake on a honeymoon here is the same one people make on any first trip, only more expensive: adding another destination. Three stops in seven days means you unpack twice and drive twice. Five means half your honeymoon goes on transit, and no amount of good hotels makes up for it.
So the itineraries on this page are shorter than the ones on the trips index, with more nights in each place and considerably less on the schedule. If you want to see more, take more days rather than more stops.
The questions people actually ask
- Will we feel chaperoned?
- No, and it is the thing couples ask most. Your guide drives you to places and then goes away. Half the days on a honeymoon itinerary have nothing on them, meals are almost always just the two of you, and the guide is a phone number rather than a presence. What you are paying for is that the decisions were made before you got here.
- Is South Africa a sensible honeymoon in our winter?
- Close to ideal. November through March is high summer here, with long evenings and warm sea, at the point when Europe is dark. The one thing to know is that Christmas and New Year is peak domestic season and wants booking a long way ahead.
- Can we combine it with a beach?
- Yes, though not usually in South Africa itself, since the Atlantic side of the Cape is genuinely cold. Most couples who want a beach ending fly on to Mozambique, Mauritius or Zanzibar for a week. We will book the connection and hand you over properly, and we will tell you straight that we do not operate at the other end.
- We would rather not be identified as honeymooners everywhere we go.
- Then say so and it will not happen. We tell properties only what is useful, usually so they can move a table or quietly upgrade a room, and we will ask them not to do anything performative. Nobody has to have rose petals.
- Are we going to be sharing a minibus with strangers?
- Never. Every trip we run is private: your guide, your vehicle, your party and nobody else. The only time you share anything is on a boat or a helicopter, and even then we will ask about a private charter if you want one.
- What if we want a safari as well?
- A lot of honeymoons here are a Cape week followed by a few nights in the bush. We run the Cape half, book the internal flight and hand you over at the airport. We do not operate in the Lowveld or the Eastern Cape and we will not pretend to, but we know who does and we will tell you.
Itineraries built this way
10 days · 9 nights
Ten Days in the Cape
The unhurried version, with time on the water and two nights on the coast.
What tends to suit
Food and wine
Wine tasting in the Cape
Three estates, one long lunch, and a guide who drives.
A full day, or a half day from Cape Town
Scenic
Helicopter flights
Twenty minutes over the peninsula, or a valley-to-valley transfer.
Twenty minutes to an hour, plus briefing
Scenic
Boat trips and sunset cruises
Seal Island out of Hout Bay, or a glass of something off Clifton.
Forty minutes to three hours, depending on the boat
Scenic
Cape Point
A lighthouse on a cliff at the end of the peninsula.
Half a day, or a full day combined with the penguins
From guests who travelled this way
In-depth knowledge of wine and the Western Cape, a warm welcome from the start, and will make you feel at home while you explore the many vineyards South Africa has to offer. Truly top glass.
Nicholas Arcaro
Facebook recommendation ·
Day tour · the Cape Winelands
Left for Top Glass Tours, the Cape Town day-tour company Angie has run for twenty years, before Cape Compass existed.
We had been quite specific that we did not want a honeymoon that felt organised at, and this was the first company that seemed to actually hear it. Nine days, three places, and about half the schedule anyone else had proposed. What we paid for, it turns out, was the absence of decisions. Every restaurant was booked at the right hour. The estate in Franschhoek did not put us at a counter with a tour bus. The hotel in Hermanus moved us to a room facing the water without our asking, which I later found out was because Sam had asked. Nobody scattered rose petals anywhere, which we had specifically requested and which apparently is harder to achieve than you would think.
Ben and Marianne W.
Notting Hill, London ·
7 days · Cape Town, the peninsula, Franschhoek and Hermanus
Placeholder testimonial. Replace with a real guest review before launch.
We went in the Cape winter, which everyone told us was the wrong time, and it was the best possible advice we ignored. The city was quiet and clear between the fronts, the wine estates had fires lit and nobody in them, and there were whales in Walker Bay in July with about six other people on the cliff path. Cape Compass were straight with us about the trade-offs rather than selling us a season. That is the whole reason we trusted the rest of it.
James and Priya C.
San Francisco, California ·
7 days · Cape Town, the Winelands and the whale coast
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Practical questions
- How long should a Cape honeymoon be?
- Seven days is the version on this page and it is the one most couples take. Ten turns it unhurried, with a night out on the peninsula and time on the water. Under five nights we would keep you in Cape Town entirely rather than spend a third of it moving.
- When is the best time?
- October and November, or February and March. Both give you a warm Cape without the December crowds and without the worst of the summer wind.
- Do you arrange anything for the wedding party as well?
- We are not a wedding planner and would not pretend to be. What we do arrange is travel for parties combining a wedding here with a trip, including multi-generational groups arriving on different flights over several days.
- What about a proposal?
- More often than you would think. Tell us and we will find the right place and the right hour, and make sure the guide is somewhere else at the moment it happens.
Tell us what you actually want from it
Including "as little organised as possible", which is a brief we are very comfortable with. Six questions, three minutes, and a reply within one working day.
We reply to every enquiry within one working day.