Welcome to Southern Sky Adventures! I specialize in organizing guided and self drive trips to South Africa. “Why only South Africa?” you ask. While I offer options to take trips to neighboring countries, such as climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the foundation for this business rests on a strong attraction to South Africa and its people. I do one thing and I do it well.

This website is packed full of information about South Africa and possible activities. I have divided my offerings to include golf, hunting, climbing Kilimanjaro, wildlife safaris, scuba diving and train journeys. There are simply too many options to list them all, so I decided to come up with what might be the most popular.

When navigating this website, I would advise reading the home pages
(Introduction, History and Frequently Asked Questions) to discern who we are
and what we do. Secondly, I would advise you visit the Safari pages as this
option is really the type two-week trip I offer and has the most appeal.
The activities on other pages (golf, train journeys, etc) can be added as
you see fit.

Both nature and nurture played significant roles in my attraction to South Africa. Nature played a role as my mother is Dutch, and thus, I share a common ancestry with the current 4 million South African residents,Afrikaners, who are descendents of the Dutch explorers who reached the southern tip of Africa and founded the city of Kapstad (Cape Town) in 1652. My great grandfather, Wirtje Jan Boelman, was a clergyman at the Dutch Reformed Church in Culemborg, The Netherlands where the founder of Kapstad, Jan van Riebeek, was baptized in the early 17th century.

Nurture played a significant role in my attraction to South Africa in the form of my father’s keen interest in the country. His respect for its earliest settlers and their struggles led him to begin a more careful study of these people and their history. A voracious reader, my father became well educated on the past and present of South Africa and complimented his book study with personal visits in the 80’s. Those trips took my two brothers to explore South Africa with my father. My father and brothers’ stories of its people and exquisite places led my sister to take a trip in the 90’s. While sitting at a beachside restaurant outside the city limits of Cape Town, overlooking the view of 3,000-foot tall Table Mountain, she insisted I make my pilgrimage. I did so and have never looked back.

Guiding trips to South Africa allows me regular entrance into a part of the world I do not want to leave. That is my sole motivation in having started Southern Sky Adventures and I am eager to share with you what I have seen and experienced in this fine country.

South Africa is called "The World in One Country." Of all the vacation places in the world, the one which is most complimented to me by those who have traveled is The Republic of South Africa. It boasts everything the rest of Africa has (bountiful wildlife, magnificent vistas and exotic locales), but it has much more. It is home to a high level of civilization found nowhere else in Africa. It has the civilization of Europe or America, a population of five million Europeans, a tourist visitation of six million, a culture as high as any in the world and cities as sophisticated as New York. South Africa has one of the most beautiful and extensive seacoasts in the world, with restaurants, hotels and amenities superior to America's standard. The people, white and black, are friendly and helpful. There are few bugs and no mosquitoes except in the northern regions. The food is luxurious. Cape Town, located at the tip of the African continent, was called by Sir Francis Drake, the most beautiful Cape in the world. Johannesburg is one of the world's great cities, the industrial and economic king of Africa and Durban is the continent's greatest port. There are vast areas of country and so many pretty villages that one cannot see them all.

For a person who likes animals the varieties are complete. South Africa's Kruger National Park (200 miles from north to south) is the cornerstone upon which African conservation was founded. Breeding success in this park has led to the resurgence of many African species that were close to extinction. Whether on a photo safari or hunting safari on a nearby private game farm, it is enough to satisfy anyone. Africa's Big Five (elephant, rhinoceros, lion, leopard and buffalo) can be seen in abundance.

For flower lovers there are wild ones of varieties in one country that to see elsewhere would require visiting many countries. There are some of the most famous botanical gardens in the world. There is Table Mountain, at the world's most dramatic and famous cape, the 3,000 foot flat topped mountain overlooking Cape Town's many white sand beaches. There is Cape Agulhas where one can see ships rounding from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. There is the long "Garden Route," a coastal region to rival that of the south of France and California's Highway 1, where one is endlessly entertained by magnificent vistas and refreshed by pleasant restaurants. There is the desert and endless mountains, the view changing with every bend in the road. Johannesburg is higher than Denver but so wide is the escarpment it is not noticeable. There is world famous surfing. The waters of South Africa serve as a feeding ground for Southern Right Whales and as the prime viewing area for nature's greatest apex predator, the great white shark. In short, South Africa is an adult playground.