Rapid Travel Chai

Road tripping is a pleasure of South Africa. Seeing only its major cities and a quick jaunt to Kruger fail to do justice to that diverse, beautiful land. In many ways the experience echoes US road trips with rolling countryside and small towns where you are served up huge pieces of meat with fries AND onion rings. Local touches abound from the morning gas station rooibos tea. One guesthouse I stayed at had emu sentries at night.

Best Western has announced that the 13 properties of Orion Hotels South Africa will be join Best Western, including earn and redeem with Best Western Rewards. 3 will be online in July 2016 and the balance by end of Q1 2017.

Those first three are:

• Velmoré Hotel Estate between Pretoria and Johannesburg
• Magoebaskloof Hotel in the Magoebas Valley, near Polokwane (for those Christian, yes it is that Polokwane)
• Hotel Promenade in Nelspruit. This heritage city hotel offers guests spacious accommodations combined with genuine local hospitality

All are individual, often historic hotels, not the cookie cutter chain boxes we associate with Best Western. They will continue to be managed by Orion.

Best Western points pop up with promotions such as Daily Getaways, recently ended for 2016, so can be a useful ancillary program to have a few points (hotels by US National Parks are a popular use).

The South African Rand has been hit so hard, the country is at a tremendous discount for those with US dollars and worth making a visit happen.