OR ELOPE

A Honeymoon at the End of the World

OR ELOPE — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:35:07 GMT

We were lucky enough to be guests at this intimate, 50-person wedding in South Africa, with a safari that followed.

The people who work with me tend to follow my work long before they’re engaged, through the engagement, and long after the ring is on their finger. Choosing to work with us on something as personal as an alternative engagement ring, sculptural engagement ring, custom wedding jewelry, or bridal design is, in a lot of ways, an act of trust. You’re trusting our quality, our point of view, and our vision.

So, if you’ve trusted us with your ring, I’m going to ask you to trust me on this one too:

Go on safari.

For your honeymoon. For an anniversary. Or just for the trip you take when you want to completely disconnect from reality and spend uninterrupted time with your person.

There is something about safari that feels especially right after a wedding.

You spend months planning a wedding—looking at details, making decisions, coordinating people and timelines, thinking about the dress, the table settings, the music, the flowers, the vows. You’re focused on all of these beautiful little details that make up your human life.

Safari is the complete opposite.

You wake up when the animals wake up. You go where they go. Your phone becomes pretty irrelevant. Your normal schedule disappears.

And then, unexpectedly, you learn so much about nature, animals, and the environment around you. You start to feel very small in the best possible way, especially compared to the very cosmopolitan world most of us wake up in every day.

There is something really special about experiencing that with your partner.

It gives you a chance to completely disconnect, recharge, and actually be present with each other. And I think there is something pretty perfect about starting your next chapter with that kind of perspective.

So if you’re planning a honeymoon and want something a little less expected than the usual European itinerary, go to South Africa. Go on safari.

Here is our itinerary; what I loved, what I would skip, and what I would recommend if you want to do the same route.

01 — Cape Town

Cape Town reminded me visually of California.

The coastline. The mountains sitting immediately behind the city. Tall buildings, traffic, ocean air. Outside of neighborhoods like Bo-Kaap, it was surprisingly easy to forget that we were on the other side of the world.

Jos and I aren’t really travelers who want to do extreme activities. We prefer cafes, museums, shopping, walking around, architecture, wine, and eating. I tend to gravitate toward places that feel old-world, historic, slightly imperfect, and full of visual details.

Cape Town is better suited to someone who wants more activity than we do.

Hiking Table Mountain, swimming with sharks, exploring the coastline — there is plenty to do if that’s your travel style.

For us, five days was too long.

I think two days in Cape Town is plenty, particularly if you’re using it as the jumping-off point for Botswana.

One thing worth noting is that Cape Town isn’t a city where we felt comfortable simply wandering around everywhere on foot, so we ended up spending more time at our hotels than we normally would.

Where we stayed

We started at The Dorp, which I actually really liked for the price point. Cute rooms, a great breakfast, lovely staff, and a strong sense of place.

We eventually moved to The Belmond Mount Nelson, partly because we wanted to slow down and enjoy the hotel itself.

And this is an important distinction when booking Cape Town:

The Dorp is better if you have a full day of sightseeing planned.
The Belmond is better if you want the hotel to be part of the vacation.

There are plenty of beautiful five-star hotels in Cape Town, but we chose The Belmond because I loved the aesthetic — the pale pink architecture, grassy pool area, and that incredible Table Mountain backdrop.

I loved that the pool was surrounded by grass instead of concrete, with no harsh markings around it. It felt less like a hotel pool and more like your own backyard

02 — Stellenbosch

Stellenbosch is a dream.

Wine country is about an hour from Cape Town, and it is absolutely stunning.

The architecture is Cape Dutch, which has very quickly and unexpectedly become one of my favorite architectural styles.

It has all of these beautiful swirls, intricate details, old-world roofing and barn-like forms that somehow feel both whimsical and incredibly

My inner child loves the ornate swirls; it immediately reminds me of our Cinnabon Setting.

We loved Stellenbosch immediately and actually felt more aligned with it than Cape Town.

We attended an intimate 50 person wedding at Babylonstoren, which is an enormous property with gardens, barns, restaurants, pools, vineyards; For anyone planning a destination wedding in South Africa, especially an alternative or design-forward wedding, Babylonstoren is absolutely worth looking at.

And if you’re an alternative bride who cares about architecture, interiors, food, gardens, and the overall visual language of your wedding, this is the kind of place that makes sense.

03 — Botswana: The After-wedding and ideal Honeymoon

After the wedding, a small group of us headed to Botswana.

We split our safari between the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park, staying at three different camps.

Getting to Botswana from Cape Town is a 2½-hour commercial flight, followed by a small six-seater plane and then, depending on the camp, a long drive or transfer.

Botswana is more expensive than Kenya or Tanzania, but I think there is a reason for that.There was a noticeable lack of mass tourism during our stay, and that made an enormous difference.

When most of us imagine safari, we picture the Lion King version: huge open grasslands & herds of animals migrating.

That’s much closer to what you’ll find in places like the Masai Mara.

The Okavango Delta is different; It is bushier, full of deltas. There are sandy roads and waterways throughout. Because of that, the amount of wildlife you can see is incredible.

04 — Choosing the Right Safari Camp

This ended up being one of the biggest lessons of our trip.

Do not book a safari based on the star rating alone.

Our first Delta camp technically had a five-star rating.

In reality, I would have called it closer to three.

The staff were incredibly sweet. The beds were comfortable. But the cabins, food, and communal spaces were fairly basic.

It felt more like a really nice cabin rental rather than luxury safari experience we had imagined.

And this matters more on safari than it does almost anywhere else.

Because when you’re on safari, the camp is your entire world.

They are your guides.

Your chefs.

Your transportation.

Your activities.

Your only real point of contact.

You aren’t staying somewhere and leaving for dinner somewhere else. Your entire experience is determined by the camp.

So before booking, I would recommend doing something slightly obsessive:

Look at tagged Instagram photos. Look at Google images. Read reviews. Look at the actual rooms. Look at the pool. Look at the dining room. Look at the vehicles.

Don’t just look at the marketing photography.

The other thing we noticed immediately was the difference in the guides.

At the first camp, the drives sometimes felt like a task to be completed. There wasn’t much explanation about animal behavior or tracking, and conversations were relatively short.

The wildlife itself was still incredible but the difference became very obvious when we moved to our next camp.

05 — Chobe National Park + Ghoha Hills

From the Delta, we moved toward Chobe National Park.

The landscape here looked much more like the safari I had imagined: larger open fields, fewer waterways, and more isolated watering holes.

The sand changed between bright white and deep red, and the landscape felt completely different from the Delta.

Our camp, Ghoha Hills, was a major upgrade from our first stop.

But more importantly, the guides were phenomenal.

Our guides in terms of knowledge were 10/10.

The camp itself, however, still didn’t quite feel like a five-star luxury property,

The cabins were beautiful and the views were incredible, but the communal spaces felt somewhat disconnected from the rooms. There was a small pool, a dining area, and the cabins scattered along the hills

look at the actual property before booking.

06 — The Camp That Got It Right: Belmont Elephant Lodge

Then we arrived at Belmont Elephant Lodge, and this was the first time the five-star rating actually felt like a five-star experience.

The chefs were incredible.

The rooms were beautiful.

The guides were extremely knowledgeable.

The vehicles were comfortable.

The property itself felt intentional.

Every part of the experience felt considered and intentional. That’s something I value deeply as a designer, and something I look for in my own experiences. In our studio, we approach custom engagement ring design in much the same way; from sourcing the right diamond or antique stone, to developing a sculptural, alternative bridal design, to revising every detail until it feels completely personal to the couple. For me, that level of intention is what makes something truly luxurious.

Belmond Elephant Lodge was the clearest example of what a true luxury safari camp should feel like: thoughtful, immersive, and completely connected to its environment. if you’re planning a honeymoon where the goal is to feel completely removed from your normal life, this is the type of property I would prioritize.

So… Should You Safari for Your Honeymoon?

Yes.

Especially if you’re the kind of person who would rather have one extraordinary experience than ten average ones.

go on safari.

It is romantic in a way thats out of the norm. You wake up together before sunrise and spend an incredible amount of time uninterrupted, with literally no where to be other than there.

My ideal version of this trip

2 days — Cape Town
Enough to arrive, adjust, eat, see the city and move on.

3 days — Stellenbosch
Wine, architecture, gardens, restaurants and slow mornings.

4–6 days — Botswana
I would prioritize the Delta + Chobe, but I would spend more of the trip at the strongest camp rather than changing properties too often.

And if you are planning a destination wedding in South Africa, an alternative bridal editorial, custom engagement ring, or sculptural wedding jewelry, consider this your reminder that the honeymoon doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s either.

Best,

Jonne

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