The Rough Guide to South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland, South Africa is a large, diverse and incredibly beautiful country. The size of France and Spain combined, it varies from the picturesque Garden Route towns of the Western Cape to the raw stretch of subtropical coast in northern KwaZulu-Natal. It’s also one of the great cultural meeting points of the African continent, a fact obscured by years of enforced racial segregation, but now manifest in the big cities. Yet South Africa is also something of an enigma; it has the best travel facilities on the African continent, but also the most difficult surface to scratch. After so long as an international pariah, the "rainbow nation" is still struggling to find its identity. Many visitors are pleasantly surprised by South Africa’s excellent infrastructure, which draws favourable comparison with countries such as Australia or the United States. Good air links and bus networks, excellent roads and a growing number of first-class B&Bs and guesthouses make South Africa a perfect touring country and – with the dramatic slide of the rand in 2001 a cheap one too for visitors. For those on a budget, rapidly mushrooming backpacker hostels and backpacker buses provide an efficient means of exploring. However, as a visitor, you’ll have to make an effort to meet members of the country’s African majority on equal terms. Apartheid may be dead, but its heritage continues to shape South Africa in a very physical way. The country was organized for the benefit of whites, so it’s easy to get a very white-orientated experience of Africa. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the layout of towns and cities, where African areas – often desperately poor are usually tucked out of sight.

About the Author

Barbara McCrea received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in 1992. She previously taught in Western Michigan's Department of Political Science and College of General Studies from 1971-81 and 1982-85. Her major research areas are politics and nationalism in Eastern Europe and, more recently, issues of peace and conflict management in the post-communist world. She was an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame 1991-93 and since 1994 has held appointment as a visiting scholar at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at Notre Dame.