Make the most of your South African experience by meeting the people who play the largest role in its history and everyday life.

Meet the bikies of the Cape:

Rev through the supermodel of a city that is Cape Town and explore her curves on another potential love affair – a vintage Harley Davidson sidecar. With the strong Atlantic winds on your face, blowing in from Antarctica, all cares are banished by open-road freedom. 

The vintage Harley Davidsons purr like a lion before leaving in a procession that is more sedate than the hard-core leather biker get-up would have you believe. From the sidecar there's time enough to take photos and with stop-offs along the way this is a relaxed and quirky opportunity to see and photograph the showstoppers of the city.

These include Camps Bay, Hout Bay, Clifton Beach and Fish Hoek, which has a popular takeaway fish and chip shop by the water, so you can tuck into some newspaper wrapped fried foods for the return leg of the journey in the comfort of your metal vestibule – no hands required.

Connect in the townships:

You have two options when choosing a township tour. The first is a drive-through visit and the second is a real connection with the community. 

The latter is offered by Jorvan Tours, where you can give back on a cultural township experience with funds directed to the not for-profit Jorvan Community outreach organisation, which supports shelters for abused children, a community soup kitchen and many other worthy programs. "You won't be doing a human safari today. Our tour is very interactive and very real," my Jorvan tour guide Brian said. 

On our tour we visit the Dare to Stand Out educational program which Brian founded to help gifted school children from the townships enter university. Brian and his wife, a local teacher, operate a shared house for students from single mother families to study during the week and go home over weekends. "The focus of the program is children from single mother homes and child-headed families – a personal crusade for Brian, who grew up without a father. "We used to pray someone would help us and our mum," Brian said. Past students have gone on to university, the most recent as a chemistry student. 

The township visit I take also includes a trip to an Educare centre that looks after young children and nurtures a youth choir for township children. All the Educare centre income comes from selling CDs of the choir's music. We are treated to a performance by the girls, and their joyous faces, clapping, dances and powerful voices provided an emotional climax that was a stand-out of the trip.

You see, the purpose of Jorvan Tour's township itinerary is not to depress the visitor but to show the realities and engage on a real level. I left feeling thoroughly uplifted. 

Get to know your guide on safari:

Your safari guide will be your personal encyclopaedia, entertainer, and all-round outdoor enthusiast. They are the intrinsic link between a safari-goer and the bush of Africa, brimming with know-how but also the ability to engage with all. They serve you coffee and rusks at 6am before a morning drive and will regale you with tales of Africa over a campfire dinner at night. 

A great guide picks up on group dynamics and caters the drive to make the safari special for each person – even when you have a ten-time safari tripper and a first-timer in the same vehicle. Or a wife desperate to see the big cats and a husband interested only in birds. It has to be said that their expertise and excitement is infectious. "You become a guide because you're passionate about the bush, the people and conservation," &Beyond Phinda game reserve guide Devon Myers said. 

Safari company &Beyond trains its guides to the highest level. Our guide Warrick has the ability to drive while looking at us and not the road – that's how well he knows this terrain. To become an &Beyond safari guide new recruits are challenged to lone bush survival for ten days. Warrick bumped into a pride of lions on his first day. You'd have to be committed to a guide career if you are prepared to stare down one of these fearsome big cats. The lioness came at a standing, unarmed Warrick with a stiff-legged, low to the ground run, tail flicking. He yelled and walked backwards 40 metres until she backed away. "Looking back it was scary but at that particular time your adrenalin kicks in and I remember being so calm," he said. It would have to be one of the more gruelling training programs to become a safari guide but it produces high quality bushmen. 

When planning your safari, be sure to speak to the lodge to ensure you have the right guide for your needs. Some specialise in walking safaris, while others are expert cat-spotters. Safari is an experience that bonds everyone in the vehicle so be prepared to leave with new friends and stories aplenty.

Admire Madiba's legacy:

It's hard to imagine another man so integral to a modern nation's identity. Revered in life, Nelson Mandela's death united South Africa and the world in grief and veneration for his teachings. 

Understanding Madiba's lifework is crucial to understanding South Africa. While no country is a utopia, in South Africa indigenous tribes live side by side with Afrikaans, Malays, Indians, Cape coloured and European whites. "I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man," Mandela said. At the end of apartheid, when racial tensions escalated into violence, it was Mandela who made this multicultural country unite. "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others," he said. 

Today visitors can track Madiba's life journey in four provinces – Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. The Western Cape is the place to visit for Madiba's incarceration sites, such as Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison, where the physical long walk to freedom took place. Gauteng province, home to Pretoria and Johannesburg, is where the majority of Mandela tributes and history is to be found. There's his former home on Vilakazi Street, the Mandela House museum, the Apartheid museum as well as a square, statue and bridge named in his honour. KwaZulu-Natal is where he was taken into custody while the Eastern Cape is home to his university and a striking voting line sculpture that silhouettes the coast of Port Elizabeth.

"There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living," Mandela said. It could be an invitation to visit his home country, a place where daily life is amplified beyond measure. South Africa is geared toward the exceptional, whether it's the people, the pursuits or the places. It is a country as warm and welcoming as you'd hope to find with a backdrop of grand scale nature. So do as Mandela encouraged and play big on a trip to South Africa.