"For a long time, lodges in South Africa tended to be geared toward the Big Five. Grootbos, on the fynbos slopes near Walker Bay, south of Cape Town, is different. This 6,177-acre private reserve is about treasuring the smaller, finer things. With 889 plant species, seven of which are newly discovered, it is first and foremost a rare botanical treasure trove, in which owner Michael Lutzeyer has employed some of the Cape’s leading botanists and entomologists. The lodges are glassy and contemporary, but there’s a constant call outdoors—from the outside showers to tracking elusive aardvark and Cape leopard, or having lantern-lit dinners in a 1,000-year-old milkwood forest, all fairy-tale tangles. You can ride horses across the sands, past ancient sea caves; go on flower safaris, tree-planting expeditions, and whale-watching flights to see the calving Southern right whales that migrate inshore between July and December. Most of the food on the carbon-negative reserve is grown on site, and nothing comes from more than 30 miles away, with many of the staff graduates of the in-house hospitality academy. But the main takeaway of Grootbos is that just stopping and looking—at the interconnectedness and mad beauty of life—is the most mesmerizing thing of all." - CNT Editors