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Sandwiched between the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's two most popular coastal provinces, the Eastern Cape tends to be bypassed by visitors - and for all the wrong reasons. The relative neglect it has suffered as a tourist destination and at the hands of the government is precisely where its charm lies. You can still find traditional African villages here, and the region's 1000km of undeveloped coastline alone justify a visit, sweeping back inland in immense undulations of vegetated dunefields. For anyone wanting to get off the beaten track, the province is, in fact, one of the most rewarding regions in South Africa.

Port Elizabeth is the province's commercial centre, principally used to start or end a trip along the Garden Route, though it's a useful springboard for launching out into the rest of South Africa - the city is the transport hub of the Eastern Cape, well served by flights, trains, buses and car rental companies. Jeffrey's Bay, 75km to the west, has a fabled reputation among surfers for its perfect waves. East of Port Elizabeth, the R72 coastal road, a great rolling journey, provides easy access to a series of unassuming resorts, all gloriously sited on euphorbia-clad hillsides at the mouths of lazy rivers. Around an hour's drive inland are some of the province's most significant game reserves, the only places in the southern half of the country providing serious game viewing, among them Addo Elephant National Park, a Big Five reserve where sightings of elephants are virtually guaranteed. Addo and the private reserves nearby are among the few game reserves in South Africa that are malaria-free throughout the year. The hinterland to the north takes in areas appropriated by English immigrants shipped out in the 1820s as ballast for a new British colony. Here, Grahamstown glories in its twin roles as the spiritual home of English-speaking South Africa and host to Africa's biggest arts festival. Close by, the Big Five country of Kwandwe Private Game Reserve comprises stony hills vegetated by monumental candelabra-like succulents and a river course lined with thorn trees - the most desirable wildlife destination in the province and one of several game-viewing areas in the vicinity of Grahamstown.

The northwest is dominated by the sparse beauty of the Karoo, the thorny semi-desert stretching across much of central South Africa. The rugged Mountain Zebra National Park, 200km north of Port Elizabeth, is a terrific place to watch herbivorous game in a stirring landscape of flat-topped mountains and arid plains stretching for hundreds of kilometres. A short step to the west, Graaff-Reinet is the quintessential eighteenth-century Cape Dutch Karoo town, with its serene whitewashed streetscape.
The eastern part of the province, largely the former Transkei, is by far the least developed, with rural Xhosa villages predominating. East London, the province's only other centre of any size, sits on the cusp of the former "white" South Africa and the African "homelands", and also serves well as a springboard for heading north into the central region, where the principal interest derives from political and cultural connections. Steve Biko was born here, and you can visit his grave in King William's Town to the west. Further west is Alice, less well known than its university, Fort Hare, which educated many contemporary African leaders, including Nelson Mandela. The only established resorts in this section are in the Amatola Mountains, where indigenous forests and mossy coolness provide relief from the dry scrublands below. Tucked into the northeastern corner of the province, the Drakensberg range, more commonly associated with KwaZulu-Natal, makes a steep ascent out of the Karoo and offers trout-fishing, skiing in winter and ancient San rock art. The focus of the area is the remote, lovely village of Rhodes, a long journey down a rough road, which rewards you with absolute tranquillity and exceptional views.

Further east, the Wild Coast region remains one of the least developed and most exciting regions in the country. It's also the poorest part of the poorest province, a fact reflecting its historic role as a dumping ground for black South Africans. Despite this, the region is blessed with fabulously beautiful subtropical coast. From here, all the way to the KwaZulu-Natal border, dirt roads trundle down to the coast from the N2 to dozens of remote and indolent hillside resorts, of which Port St Johns is the biggest and best known. West of Port St Johns, the Wild Coast Hotel Meander, an organized walking trail, takes in a deserted stretch of cliffs and sands with convenient stops at small family resort hotels. Along the coast to the east of town, you can explore beaches and rural villages on horseback as part of the community-run Amadiba Trail, which starts near the KwaZulu-Natal border. In the rugged, goat-chewed landscape inland, Xhosa-speakers live in mud-and-tin homesteads, scraping a living herding stock and growing crops. Most visitors pass as quickly as possible through Mthatha (formerly Umtata), the ugly former capital of the Transkei - but if you're following in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, the Nelson Mandela Museum in the centre of Mthatha and Qunu, his birthplace southwest of the town, are obvious ports of call.

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