It’s official, South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world, in a recent Buzzfeed article “The 20 most beautiful countries in the world” – South Africa came in ahead of USA in second place and New Zealand in third place. Other African countries such as Namiba, Kenya and Tanzania also made it into the top 10.
(Top 10 List here)
What is most interesting to us about this accolade is the fact that the reasoning for South Africa being the “most beautiful status” includes almost all our main Wilderness areas, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the Drakensberg, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi, they all get an honorable mention. The value of wilderness for tourism is clear, the need to protect it is undeniable. Sometimes, living in South Africa, we easily forget how special our home is and great to see it from an outside perspective sometimes.
This is what BuzzFeed had to say about South Africa
This country sweeps international travel prizes and has travellers raving about its beauty so much that it has the highest repeat tourism of any long haul destination in the world! Considering how crazy people are about the place, it’s not surprising that South Africa takes the top spot in the beauty stakes.
Not only does the country have stupendous natural beauty, but it’s urban-amazing too. The town of Franschhoek has been named amongst the five loveliest in the world, and the metropolis of Cape Town is more often than not picked as the most beautiful city on earth by travel lists and tourists alike, because of both its unparalleled natural setting and gorgeous architecture. This setting is on a coastline hailed as the most beautiful on earth. In fact the country has three of the world’s ten most beautiful coastal drives including Clarens Drive and Chapman’s Peak. These were number one and number two most beautiful coastal drives respectively
South Africa also has an astonishing variety of marine life, with almost twice the number of marine species as the whole Mediterranean in a coastline only 2000 miles long. It’s the best place in the world to view whales from shore, and to swim with great white sharks. The world’s largest migration of Ocean life occurs here, and is one of the two largest migrations of any kind on earth.
With some of the finest national parks in the world, including the Kgalagadi, Isimangaliso, Hluhlue Imfolozi and Tsitsikamma, South Africa has been rated the finest wildlife destination on earth and is Africa’s most biodiverse. That’s much of where it leaps ahead of other countries in terms of beauty. What’s better than a great sunset? A great sunset with giraffes or elephants in front! The Greater Kruger National Park and Limpopo Transfrontier Park has more species of large mammal than anywhere else in the world. Surrounding Cape Town is the world’s densest plant kingdom by species count. The King Protea flower is a gorgeous bloom the size of a dinner plate!
Read full story on Buzzfeed
