Rovos Rail 101 – What to know before you book

There are journeys where the goal is simply to get from one destination to another. And then there is Rovos Rail. Travelling aboard Rovos Rail means deliberately slowing things down. Instead of flying over Southern Africa, you watch the landscape change outside your window, broken up by carefully selected stops along the way: a game drive, a historic town, desert dunes. Dinner is a dressed-up occasion in a wood-panelled dining car, and afternoons disappear in the observation car as another corner of the continent rolls past. But what is travelling on Rovos Rail actually like? Which route should you choose? And is it worth including in your itinerary?

Every train carries a maximum of 72 passengers, which keeps the experience intimate. There are three suite categories, all ensuite with air conditioning, a safe and daily servicing.

The communal spaces do a lot of the work too. There is a main lounge car, plus a smaller lounge where smoking is permitted. At the very back is the observation car, an open-air platform where most people end up standing at sunset, watching the line disappear behind the train. Meals get their own stage too: a gong sounds, and the dining car turns the occasion into a proper sit-down event.

There are deliberately no televisions, radios or WiFi aboard, so the experience encourages you to disconnect instead of filling every spare moment (WiFi is available at Rovos Rail’s Cape Town and Pretoria lounges). Guests read, play cards or board games, talk to other travellers, have a drink, or simply watch a part of Southern Africa that most visitors would normally fly over.

Several routes build in stops where the train empties out for a few hours: a game drive, a walk through a historic town, time at a canyon, desert dunes, or a national park, before everyone is back aboard and the journey continues. That changing rhythm, train, landscape, excursion, back to the train, is a big part of why three or four days aboard goes by faster than it sounds.

Rovos Rail runs a mix of short escapes and multi-country expeditions, all departing from Pretoria’s Capital Park Station and available in reverse.

One of the best ways to experience Rovos Rail is to make it one chapter of a larger journey. A couple of our itineraries show exactly how this plays out.

One was a 15-day trip through Cape Town, the Sabi Sands, the Blyde River Canyon and Victoria Falls, with a day in Chobe. Instead of flying back from Victoria Falls, the travellers took 3 nights aboard Rovos Rail, including a game drive in Hwange National Park, before a final safari in Pilanesberg. The other was a 19-day circuit through Cape Town, St Lucia, Eswatini, Kruger, the Panorama Route and Victoria Falls, again with a day in Chobe. It ended with 4 nights aboard, with time off the train at both Hwange and Matobo National Parks.

If this sounds like your kind of trip, a word on timing. Rovos Rail runs on fixed departure dates, so keep that in mind when mapping out your itinerary.