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Author: BazBus Editorial Team
Quick Summary: The Garden Route’s hostel network is one of the best-developed backpacker circuits anywhere, built around small owner-run properties rather than chains. This guide goes town by town along the Cape Town to Port Elizabeth corridor, describing what each stop’s accommodation scene is genuinely like, what to prioritise when choosing, and where we’d spend the extra night.
A note on perspective before the towns.
BazBus has been picking travellers up from the doors of Garden Route backpacker lodges since 1995, and our network covers more than 180 hostels across over 40 cities, towns and villages. That gives us an unusual vantage point: we see which properties travellers rebook, which ones they leave early, and which towns generate requests to extend a stay.
It also means we have a commercial relationship with many of them, and you should factor that in. What we’ve done here is describe each town’s scene honestly — including which stops we think are worth an extra night and which are functional rather than special — rather than rank individual properties. Partner lists change, properties change hands, and the current confirmed pickup list is the one shown when you book. Always verify door-to-door pickup for the specific property before you commit.
The Garden Route hostel scene divides fairly cleanly into four types, and knowing which you want saves a lot of scrolling.
Beyond the type, five filters matter more than star ratings:
Booking through a travel pass gets you exclusive rates at partner properties, which usually makes the private-room upgrade cheaper than expected.
Scene: University town, so accommodation skews social and well-priced, with a genuine student atmosphere rather than a purely traveller one. Walkable centre, oak-lined streets, and the Winelands starting at the edge of town.
Stay if: You want wine without needing a car, or a soft first stop out of Cape Town. The Stellenbosch vineyard and wine tasting day tour solves the transport problem entirely.
Nights: 1–2. Most people underrate it and give it one.
Scene: Small coastal town with accommodation that ranges from proper backpacker lodges to guesthouses that take walk-ins. Nothing here is far from the clifftop path.
Stay if: It’s whale season, which runs roughly June to December and peaks in September and October. Hermanus offers what is widely regarded as the best land-based whale watching in the world — you watch from a cliff, not a boat.
Booking warning: Whale season fills beds from July onward, and the Hermanus Whale Festival weekend in early October can be booked out months ahead. This is the one Garden Route town where late booking genuinely fails.
Nights: 2 in season, 1 out of season. Our Hermanus marine Big 5 sea safari day tour and the shark cage diving day tour both work from here.
Scene: One of South Africa’s oldest towns, with Cape Dutch architecture and a small, quiet accommodation base. Few travellers stop here, which is precisely the argument for doing so.
Stay if: You want Marloth Nature Reserve hiking, or a genuinely quiet night in a historic town.
Nights: 1, or skip it. Honest assessment: most itineraries pass through, and that’s a defensible choice.
Scene: Not a town — a lodge stop, and priced accordingly. This is a game reserve rather than backpacker accommodation.
Stay if: You want Big 5 game viewing without the trip to Kruger or Addo, and have budget for a lodge night.
Nights: 1.
Scene: The Garden Route’s western gateway, with a practical, well-established hostel scene rather than a party one. Park House Lodge is the town’s longest-standing backpacker address, and the Santos Express — a converted train parked on the beach — is the most photographed place to sleep on the entire route.
Stay if: You want the beach without crowds, shark cage diving, or the St Blaize cliff trail, which is one of the best free walks on the Garden Route.
Nights: 1–2.
Scene: George itself is a service town — the bus stops at George Mall, and there’s a decent supermarket and not much reason to linger. Oudtshoorn, inland over the Outeniqua Mountains, is a different proposition, with an established backpacker scene built around the Cango Caves and ostrich farms.
Important logistics note: Oudtshoorn is reached by private shuttle from George Mall, and that shuttle is not included in your pass. Budget and book for it separately.
Nights: 0 in George, 2 in Oudtshoorn if you’re going.
Scene: Small, green, forested, set between a lagoon and a long beach. Accommodation is limited and tends toward the quiet-retreat category. This is the town where our passengers most often extend.
Stay if: You want the Kingfisher Trail, paragliding off the Map of Africa viewpoint, horse riding on the beach, or simply a couple of days where nothing is scheduled.
Nights: 2. This is our nomination for the most consistently underrated stop on the route.
Scene: South Africa’s first official Slow Town, which tells you most of what you need to know. Very small accommodation base, five uncrowded beaches, and the Wild Oats farmers market on Saturday mornings.
Stay if: Your bus timing lands you here on a Friday night. The market alone justifies it.
Nights: 1.
Scene: The Garden Route’s most developed town and its busiest hostel scene, with a proper range from social hubs to quieter options. The Island Vibe group operates a Knysna branch alongside its better-known Jeffreys Bay property. The lagoon setting, the Heads, and the surrounding indigenous forest make this the natural base for the middle of the route.
Stay if: You want variety — forest, water, restaurants, nightlife, and easy day trips including the Knysna township tour and the Featherbed Nature Reserve.
Nights: 2–3. Most people’s favourite stop, or their second favourite.
Scene: Plett is a beach resort town with an established backpacker layer underneath the holiday-home surface — Nothando Backpackers has been a fixture for years. The Crags, fifteen minutes inland, has a distinctly different, more forest-and-hippie character.
Stay if: You want the best swimming beaches on the route, or you’re doing the Bloukrans bungee jump at 216m, or Monkeyland and the sanctuaries around The Crags. The canyoning trip also runs from here.
Nights: 2. Plett gets expensive over Christmas — plan around it.
Scene: A tiny forest village of a few streets, with a concentrated cluster of backpacker accommodation serving Tsitsikamma. Tube ‘n Axe is the best-known name and has been part of the village’s traveller scene for a long time. Everything is walkable; there is essentially no risk of a bad night walk because there is nowhere far to walk to.
Stay if: You want Tsitsikamma National Park, the suspension bridge, blackwater tubing, the Otter Trail day sections, canopy tours, or forest that feels genuinely wild.
Nights: 2–3. Along with Wilderness, this is where we’d spend the extra night if you have one.
Scene: Surf town, and the hostel scene reflects it — surf lessons, board hire, and a traveller community that turns over slowly because people keep staying longer. Island Vibe, perched on a dune above the Indian Ocean, is the landmark property.
Stay if: You surf, want to learn, or want a beach town with an actual identity rather than a resort one. The famous right-hand point break at Supertubes is best from roughly May to September.
Nights: 2–3, more if you’re surfing.
Scene: A city again, with accommodation concentrated around the beachfront and Summerstrand. Bigger, more anonymous, and functional rather than charming — but it’s the gateway to Addo and the eastern end of the route.
Stay if: You’re doing the Addo Elephant Park full day tour or the two-day version, or flying out. Our Port Elizabeth travel guide covers the city in more depth.
Nights: 1–2, plus whatever Addo requires.
If someone handed us a 14-day pass and asked how to split it, our answer would be shaped less by which towns are famous and more by which ones reward staying put:
That leaves the western stops as travel days rather than destinations, which is a defensible way to run the route unless you’re specifically going for wine.
The counterargument, which we’d take seriously: the 21 Day Travel Pass exists because the difference between 14 and 21 days on this route is enormous. Fourteen days means moving every other day. Twenty-one means occasionally waking up somewhere and deciding not to leave.
“Solo travelling can sometimes be a little stressful getting from place to place but all of this was eliminated with Bazbus. You meet so many people when you get on the bus and you keep on hanging out together all the way to Port Elizabeth depending on what people are doing along the way, it’s great seeing familiar faces around the other cities.” — Rob H, Ireland
When to book. Mid-December to early January: six to eight weeks ahead, minimum. February to April and October to November: two to three weeks. May to September: a few days is usually fine, with Hermanus in whale season as the standing exception.
Discounts. Travel passes include exclusive rates at partner properties along the route, generally better than public booking site prices. Ask when you book each stop rather than assuming it applies automatically.
Confirming pickup. Add your accommodation details to your login as soon as each stop is confirmed. We can’t collect you from an address we don’t have, and this is by some distance the most common cause of a missed pickup.
A winter scheduling note. From March to September buses run five days a week rather than daily, which means your minimum stay in any town may be two nights rather than one. Check the schedule before you book beds, not after.
Do I need to book hostels in advance or can I decide as I go?
Both approaches work, but the answer depends heavily on season. Between May and September you can genuinely improvise — beds are available, prices are low, and turning up with a plan formed that morning is normal. Between mid-December and early January, improvising is a bad idea; the Garden Route’s coastal towns fill completely and you can end up paying resort prices for a room out of town. The middle seasons sit between the two. Our practical suggestion is to book the first three nights of any trip in advance regardless of season, then loosen up once you’ve found your rhythm.
Are Garden Route hostels safe for solo travellers?
Broadly, yes, and the route carries a large volume of solo travellers year-round. The properties are mostly small and owner-run, which means staff know who’s on site in a way that large chain accommodation doesn’t. The practical filters that matter are female-only dorm availability, lockers that take your own padlock, and on-site food or a kitchen so you’re not walking somewhere for dinner after dark. The small towns along the middle of the route — Wilderness, Sedgefield, Storms River — are particularly relaxed. Cape Town and Port Elizabeth are cities and warrant normal city awareness.
What’s the difference between a backpackers, a hostel and a lodge here?
In South African usage, “backpackers” is the standard local term for what most of the world calls a hostel, and the two are interchangeable. “Lodge” is looser — it can mean an upmarket safari property, or it can be part of a hostel’s name with no implication of luxury at all. The only reliable way to know what you’re booking is the room types on offer and the recent review text. Don’t assume price signals quality on this route; some of the best-loved properties are also among the cheapest.
Can I stay somewhere that isn’t a BazBus partner?
Yes. Nothing about a travel pass obliges you to stay at partner properties, and plenty of passengers mix partner hostels with Airbnbs, guesthouses or friends’ spare rooms. The practical consideration is pickup: door-to-door collection works at properties on our route, and for anything else you’ll need to meet the bus at a confirmed point instead. If you’re staying somewhere independent, tell us when you book the leg so we can sort the logistics rather than discovering it on the morning.
How much should I budget per night?
Dorm beds along the Garden Route are inexpensive by international standards and vary meaningfully by town and season, with Knysna and Plettenberg Bay at the higher end and the smaller inland stops at the lower. Private rooms typically cost roughly two to three times a dorm bed, which for two people sharing often works out similar per person. The variable that moves budgets most isn’t accommodation at all — it’s activities, since a single bungee jump or shark cage dive can cost more than three nights’ accommodation.
Individual property details change frequently — ownership, room types, facilities and partner status all move faster than any published guide can track — so treat the named properties here as long-standing landmarks in each town rather than as current recommendations or confirmed pickup points, and verify both availability and door-to-door collection at the time of booking. Our night-count suggestions reflect the preferences travellers report to us and our own view of each town, which is inevitably shaped by operating the route commercially; cross-check against independent traveller accounts if your priorities differ from the typical Garden Route itinerary.
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