Heritage Month invites us not just to remember but to live our many-layered stories—and what better way than on the open road? A Heritage Month road trip is more than just travel; it’s a cultural pilgrimage.
Every route, meal, song, and sight is a chapter of South Africa’s narrative—woven from Indigenous traditions, immigrant cultures, colonial histories, and post-apartheid resilience.
1. Roads that carry history
Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve, Panorama Route/Claudirene/Wikimedia Commons
Certain routes aren’t only scenic—they are storytellers.
- Panorama Route offers breathtaking views and a window into the geology and history of Mpumalanga.
- Route 62, famously spanning 850 km from Cape Town to Gqeberha, is one of the world’s longest wine routes. It traverses towns rich with vinicultural heritage, ostrich farms, and former mission stations.
- The Garden Route, hugging the southern coast, weaves through forests, farms, and towns that reflect the country’s colonial and Indigenous layers. It’s a multi-day road trip, also highlighted by Auto Europe for its cultural and natural diversity.
Other thematic options—like a Foodie Route, Cultural Route, or Wild Route—are curated road trips that spotlight heritage through taste, art, or nature.
2. Food stops that tell a story
Bunny Chow/Andy Li/Wikimedia Commons
Heritage Month is best celebrated flavour by flavour, from farm stalls to palace-worthy dishes.
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Farm stalls are quintessentially South African roadside treasures. Each one is unique, offering local homemade jams, roosterkoek, pies, and crafts—connecting travellers to rural heritage and livelihoods.
Iconic dishes to seek out:
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- Bunny chow in Durban: a hollowed-out loaf filled with curry, steeped in Indian-South African history.
- Bobotie in Cape Town: an aromatic curried meat dish with Dutch and Cape Malay roots.
- Gatsby sandwiches, koeksisters, and vetkoek: street foods that blur cultural boundaries and delight taste buds.
- Samp and Beans (Umngqusho or Isitambu): A soulful South African comfort dish, beloved across communities. It combines cracked corn kernels (samp) with sugar beans and is traditionally simmered with onions, potatoes, butter, and sometimes chilli. Often served with hard-body chicken (umleqwa) among the Xhosa, this simple yet hearty meal carries strong cultural resonance—it was reportedly a favourite of Nelson Mandela.
In Cape Town, indulge in culinary creativity rooted in Cape Malay identity. The community continues to influence fashion, art, music, and gastronomy—evident in palace-worthy dinners or street bites.
3. Soundtrack of a nation
Let your journey be scored by the diverse rhythms of South Africa.
- In KZN, you might hear maskandi, a gritty Zulu folk music that’s as melodic as it is narrative.
- While driving through the lowveld and bush, marabi and jive, early forms of township jazz, can turn your car into a mobile groove session.
- In Cape Town, Bo-Kaap’s colourful streets echo with notes of Cape Malay melodies. Reach beyond touristy wafts of music to venues where contemporary artists—poets, DJs, and jazz groups—channel heritage through beats, lyrics, and fashion.
4. Heritage as connection
Steps up to Donkin Reserve on Route 67/Suzi-k/Wikimedia Commons
A road trip during Heritage Month is an opportunity to mix landscapes and lifeways—urban and rural, past and present.
- Walk the Donkin Heritage Trail in Port Elizabeth to explore a mix of settler-era architecture and local history.
- Pause in small towns along Route 62 to explore mission station heritage, ostrich farming lore, and wine route stories of migration and settlement.
- At each farm stall, café, heritage site, and music venue, you’re crossing paths with a community’s story—anthropological and deeply personal.
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