An African overlanding safari can be about so much more than just game drives
Africa is a fantastic destination for outdoor activities. There’s lots of sun, clear skies, warm waters, mountains, lakes, endemic animals, wild rivers, sand dunes, coral reefs, and more. It’s an adventuring playground.
Of course, an overlanding trip will include game drives – they’re the backbone of just about any African safari. But there’s much more to enjoy alongside game-spotting drives. Many of them are active, which adds some nice movement and variety to things.
If you’re planning an African overlanding adventure in East or Southern Africa, then let’s whet your appetite by touching on the primary adventure activities on offer …
Walking safari
A walking safari is a wonderfully immersive way to experience the wild spaces of Africa and draw closer to much of its wildlife. Most walking safaris are done in the company of an (armed) ranger or guide and in an area deemed suitable to explore on foot, so they’re relatively safe exercises. I encourage everyone to plan at least one walking safari during their African trip, as discussed in 3 reasons to go on a walking safari in Africa.
You can enjoy walking safaris in various game reserves all across East and Southern Africa. You can even sometimes go on a multiday bush walk, like in Kruger National Park in South Africa.
The East African Rift, which runs down the eastern side of the continent all the way into Mozambique, is a wonderful place for walking safaris as it combines game-spotting with exploring some beautiful and unique landscapes.
In Tanzania, for instance, you can descend into calderas (collapsed volcanoes) like Empakaai Crater on a guided safari walk where you can find the likes of bushbucks and buffaloes while also appreciating the flamingo-dotted lake.
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Boat safari
A boat safari is a great way to draw closer to water-loving animals like hippos, waterbucks, and crocodiles, and see many waterbirds, like flamingoes, storks, and pelicans. It also lets you appreciate the landscape from a different perspective.
One of the top destinations in Southern Africa for a boat safari is the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Caprivi Strip in nearby Namibia is also great, as is Lake Malawi on the border between Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
In East Africa, some of the region’s best boating safaris are found in Uganda. Notably, boating on the Kazinga Channel in Queen Elizabeth National Park lets you see an enormous range of wildlife. The boat ride to Murchison Falls is also wonderful as this Nile River waterfall crashes through a narrow crevice and is believed by many to be the most powerful waterfall in the world!
Finally, another of the region’s best boating safaris for gamespotting is offered on the Rufiji River in Tanzania’s Nyerere National Park.
Canoeing and kayaking
You can canoe on various lakes, lagoons, and rivers in Africa, which is wonderful for finding wildlife and birds that like to hang out in open water as well as the more tucked-away spaces in little channels.
Of particular note in Southern Africa is the gorgeous iSimangaliso Wetland Park in eastern South Africa, a reserve with many large animals like elephants, lions, and leopards, where you can go canoeing. Also wonderful is being poled along the papyrus-choked channels of the Okavango Delta in a mokoro in the flooded season.
In East Africa, Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda offers a picturesque setting for canoeing, and you can also safely swim here. You can paddle out in a traditional dugout canoe and then step out and explore many of the 29 islands, some of which have fascinating histories. (Learn more in Here’s why travellers love to stay at Lake Bunyonyi.)
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Big 5 Safari, Wilderness Walks, Waterways & Wetlands, Nature & Wildlife
Hot air balloon ride
There are various game reserves in Africa where you can enjoy a hot air balloon ride, usually at dawn. This is an incredible experience that lets you see the land and wildlife from a different vantage point. Most days you’re also gifted with a phenomenal sunrise.
The quintessential safari hot air balloon ride is that offered in the Serengeti or Masai Mara to see the Great Migration. The migratory herds of wildebeests, zebras, and gazelles are so enormous and sprawling that the very best way to approach any real understanding of the phenomenon’s scale is from the air.
Another brilliant place to splash out on a balloon ride is when visiting the Okavango Delta. This is the world’s largest inland delta, and to see the tapestry of blue and green it creates is a treat for the eyes.
White-water rafting
Sub-Saharan Africa is awash with powerful rivers, from the Congo to the Nile to the Limpopo.
If you’re keen just for a day of white-water rafting while in East Africa, head to the town of Jinja, which sits at the start of the Nile River and is your base for wonderful white-water rafting and various other adventure activities like quad biking. (Learn more in Jinja, Uganda – East Africa’s adventure capital.)
If you’re going to be overlanding in Southern Africa, look no further than the Zambezi River. It boasts numerous Class IV and V rapids and is widely considered to offer the most intense white-water rafting in Africa.
If you’d like to make rafting even more of a feature of your trip, then I recommend the multiday rafting adventure available on the Orange River in the Kalahari Desert. On this five-day trip, you camp under the stars, and in between rapids, you plop into the water alongside your raft and float with the current. (You can find out more in The Orange River on the South Africa–Namibia border is an adventure playground.)
Scuba diving and snorkelling
The coastal waters of both Southern and East Africa are rich in marine wildlife and as such are awash (pun intended) with incredible snorkelling and diving spots.
The eastern coast of the continent is particularly popular with divers and snorkellers as the water is warm, there are many world-class coral reefs to explore, and there are populations of various endangered species, like loggerhead sea turtles.
The most well-known diving sites belong to Zanzibar Archipelago, which many like to visit as they can also then explore historic Stone Town. (Learn more in Why everyone wants to visit Zanzibar Island.) Mafia Archipelago to the south also has exceptional reefs, and appeals to those who like places that are a little less touristy.
Also of note are the beaches and archipelagos of Mozambique, many of which are remote and so feel very exclusive. Bazaruto Archipelago in the north offers bucket-list reef diving as well as beautiful white-sand beaches and secluded dunes. (Learn more in Explore Mozambique’s best beaches and islands for swimming and diving.)
Primate trekking
East Africa offers some wonderful primate treks. The most famous kind is mountain gorilla trekking, which you do in the misty forests of Uganda or Rwanda.
Primate trekking is a must, in my opinion, if you have the chance. It exposes you to a very different side of Africa from what most safarigoers ever see. You explore beautiful montane (mountain) forest ecosystems, where there are lots of birds. And you do more than just stretch your legs – a mountain gorilla trek can be quite taxing if you’re assigned a troop far from HQ.
Besides mountain gorillas, you can also go chimpanzee and golden monkey tracking.
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Mountain trekking
In East Africa, you have many wonderful and very challenging multiday mountain treks. Most famously, there’s Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya, Africa’s tallest and second-tallest mountains respectively. Mt Kilimanjaro’s highest peak is a highly challenging but non-technical summit that takes at least a week to complete. Mt Kenya’s tallest peak, while not quite as high, is a challenging technical summit.
You can also trek into the misty Rwenzori mountains of Uganda. These mountains aren’t much known outside of Africa and appeal to mountaineers wanting a quieter climb that perhaps feel more pioneering. There are technical summits as well as non-technical trekking routes.
In Southern Africa, the Drakensberg mountain range of South Africa and Lesotho offers the widest range of summit treks, as well as the highest peaks. The Amphitheatre in the northern Drakensberg is a massive, sheer escarpment wall that you ascend via chain ladders. From the top, you can see the source of the breathtaking Tugela Falls, which is arguably the world’s tallest waterfall.
Sandboarding
Namibia offers a very different sort of overlanding safari experience to most other Southern African countries. The towering sand dunes of the Namib Desert can be climbed, driven, and, of course, sandboarded!
You can enjoy lying-down and standing-up sandboarding on the coastal dunes around Walvis Bay or Swakopmund.
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Nature & Wildlife, Beach & Safari, Cultural Immersion, Desert Adventurer, Top Beaches
Bungee jumping and bridge swinging
Southern Africa is the place to visit if you want to inject some serious adrenaline into your African overlanding trip. South Africa in particular has several bungee jumps and bridge swings on offer.
For starters, there’s the world’s tallest bungee jump at Bloukraans Bridge in the exceptionally beautiful Tsitsikamma region of South Africa. Here, you plummet for 216 m (709 ft) into a beautiful, wild gorge.
Then there are the bungee jump and bridge swing on offer at Victoria Falls. While half the height, what could be more epic than jumping with the ‘smoke that thunders’ waterfall as your view?
Other adventure activities on offer
Of course, I wasn’t able to mention every wonderful adventure activity you could enjoy on an African overlanding safari.
On land, you can also enjoy day hikes, canyon trekking, horse-riding safaris, cycling safaris, caving, canopy walkways, tubing, rock climbing, abseiling, rappelling, quadbiking, dune driving, and waterfall swimming, among other things. And then there are various beautiful places where you can go skydiving or paragliding.
There’s also kite surfing, jetskiing, sea kayaking, cage diving, whale- or dolphin-spotting boat rides, sailing, shipwreck diving, and various other rewarding ocean activities. But I encourage you to read How to choose an ethical animal encounter in Africa to ensure you choose activities that align with your principles and support sustainable tourism initiatives.
Finally, if there’s an adventure activity you especially love, be sure to mention it to your tour operator so they can suggest where to go and what to do based on your proposed route. Your favourite African overlanding activity might be one you haven’t yet imagined!
Note: This blog post was originally written by Sarah Duff and published in 2016. It was completely rewritten by Megan Abigail White in 2026.
