Gqeberha: safaris and whales on Algoa Bay

Formerly Port Elizabeth, Gqeberha overlooks Algoa Bay with urban beaches and safari reserves reachable in a day trip from the city center.

A rental car is useful for exploring the natural parks in the surrounding area.

The Humewood waterfront, with its internationally award-winning urban beaches, remains the ideal starting point for a first walk through the city.

A few minutes away, the Natural History Museum of Gqeberha displays the complete skeleton of a whale and remains from the marine fauna of Algoa Bay.

Heading inland you reach the Addo Elephant Park reserve, where over six hundred protected elephants live, among the highest concentrations in the world in a fenced area.

As evening approaches, a boat tour in Algoa Bay allows you to spot the world's largest colony of Cape Gannets, a seabird endemic to the region.

Addo Elephant Park was founded in 1931 to protect the last eleven surviving elephants in the region after decades of intensive hunting; today it hosts hundreds, one of South Africa's most successful conservation recoveries.

The city officially changed its name from Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha in 2021, reclaiming a pre-existing Xhosa place name as part of a broader post-apartheid renaming process across South Africa.