Gecko Travel and Tours
Gecko Travel and Tours
5
Full view
About
Gecko Travel & Tours offers you luxury, custom made private tours in Cape Town and the Garden Route with our highly trained and passionate tour guides where you will make memories that will last a lifetime. Our airport transfers from George or Port Elizabeth airports to places in the Garden Route as well as the famous Otter trail to Tsitsikamma invites you to sit back and relax while we take the stress out of your travelling. As a Tour Operator we run a scheduled shuttle service between Cape Town, Plettenberg Bay and places in the Garden Route 3 days a week. As a family run business we will tailor make your tour or any other event you may have to your perfection We strive to create exceptional experience for you through serving you with service excellence and passion
Plettenberg Bay, South Africa
Features animals
Suggest edits to improve what we show.
Improve this listingSimilar Experiences
Gecko Travel and Tours
Booking unavailable on Tripadvisor
Want other options you can book now?
Show optionsTravellers talk about
(24 reviews)
Contribute
Detailed Reviews: Reviews order informed by descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as cleanliness, atmosphere, general tips and location information.
Popular mentions
5.0
213 reviews
Excellent
202
Very good
7
Average
2
Poor
2
Terrible
0
katrin02
Mareuil Les Meaux, France85 contributions
Sep 2023 • Couples
We really enjoyed our trip with Gecko Tours.
Everything was well planned and Sharon organised a personalised tour for us.
We loved everything but especially the Meerkats, Botlierskop Safari and Tsitsikamma National Park.
Eugène was the best guide and chauffeur we could imagine and amazing company.
Always on time and flexible if we wanted to change something on the programme.
He taught us a lot about South Africa's history and culture , nature and wildlife, took us to the best vineyards and wine tasting and got us the best tables in the best restaurants. Thank you again Eugene !
The hotels Gecko Tours booked for us were out of this world, some of the nicest we stayed in and we have been travelling a lot. We highly recommend Gecko Tours !
Everything was well planned and Sharon organised a personalised tour for us.
We loved everything but especially the Meerkats, Botlierskop Safari and Tsitsikamma National Park.
Eugène was the best guide and chauffeur we could imagine and amazing company.
Always on time and flexible if we wanted to change something on the programme.
He taught us a lot about South Africa's history and culture , nature and wildlife, took us to the best vineyards and wine tasting and got us the best tables in the best restaurants. Thank you again Eugene !
The hotels Gecko Tours booked for us were out of this world, some of the nicest we stayed in and we have been travelling a lot. We highly recommend Gecko Tours !
Written 15 November 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Rajmukh
Leeds, UK46 contributions
Oct 2023 • Family
It is not often one runs out of superlatives while visiting a place. But that is exactly what happened to us in our South Africa, garden route trip. We are a family of four who have never visited Africa, let alone the rainbow nation. We arrived with trepidation. I put all my trust in Gecko Tours to book the whole trip for us. All we did was to book the flights. Sharon, the owner of Gecko Tours planned the itinerary and Nelis, her husband executed it to perfection. We were picked up from Cape Town airport by Nelis in his luxury vehicle and we stayed in the Commodore hotel at the V&A waterfront. The hotel was great to live in, and the food served was fantastic. It was fresh with excellent choices and cooked to perfection. We had 2 dinners in the hotel and were very pleased. V&A waterfront was as expected with shops and entertainment. Although the food we had there was good, we felt it to be slightly overpriced. But you get to have the ambience and the excitement of being in the V&A waterfront. At Cape Town, we went up the Table Mountain in the cable car. The views were stunning, and the terrain, wildlife and flora were unique. Besides multiple experiences like the vineyards wine tasting or chocolate tasting, the Seal Island, penguin watching, Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope and whale watching in Hermanus which were brilliant experiences, our absolute highlight would be the visit to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Nelis, as ever, pointed us to the unmissable bits and the canopy walk is certainly not to be missed. Gecko tours organised the places to stay, the experiences and the travel. All the places we stayed were wonderful. We were pleased with the Commodore Hotel at Cape Town but our stay at Mooiplaas guest house or Amanzi Lodge at Knysna was out of this world. The Sky Villa hotel at Plettenberg Bay had views to die for while the final days of the tour were at Lalibela Safari Park which was once in a lifetime experience. The food we ate in South Africa was amazing. Nelis suggested places to eat which varied from great restaurants with stunning views to lunch in a vineyard. The ambience and the culinary experience will be in our memories forever. Where else can you see a humpback whale jumping while you are having your fish or a magnificent giraffe joining you for lunch from the other side of the lake? The travel was comfortable with stunning views. Finally, the animals. We were blessed with great weather and were lucky to see whales, ostriches, penguins, hundreds of birds, big cats, small cats, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, hundreds of antelopes, and lots and lots of other animals. It was a humbling experience seeing animals in their habitat at liberty to behave as they want. Gecko Tours organised everything for us except the flights and we did not feel we could have done better doing it ourselves. The whole trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience done in luxury. The places, the experiences, the travel, the food, and the animals were all perfect. We recommend Gecko Tours wholeheartedly. Nelis was extremely knowledgeable, gave us plenty of background information, and made the perfect recommendations for restaurants. Thanks to the Gecko Tours team, we had our best holiday so far.
Written 2 November 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Kate Z
12 contributions
Sep 2023 • Couples
My husband and I hired Gecko Tours to be our private guide for our 9-day trip on the Garden Route from Cape Town. We were in communication with Sharon who initially gave us a great sample itinerary to work with and then we were able to customize it to our liking. The quote was affordable. Our driver, Nelis kept us safe and entertained with stories and titbits of the towns we drove through. He also gave great recommendations of where to eat. He got to each destination efficiently and gave us a good timeframe of how much time we had at each place. We were able to check off all the activities we wanted to do. The accommodations were amazing! The vehicle was comfortable. Although Cape Town and the Garden Route don’t seem to be unsafe, it gave us peace of mind to let a local drive us. Thank you Sharon and Nelis for such a memorable experience in South Africa!
Written 18 September 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
David O
3 contributions
Apr 2023 • Friends
Fantastic tour organised by Gecko Tours along the garden route including a stop at Botlierskop game reserve. Eugene our tour guide was an excellent guide and helped us fill do extra visits as requested and gave us the encouragement to do Bloukrans Bungee.
Written 29 April 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Trace
7 contributions
Apr 2023 • Solo
Booked the return shuttle service to Cape Town for the Easter weekend. My trip down was amazing, on time all the way until we got past Somerset. An accident had occurred at midday and the driver had to find his way through the area to get us safely to our destination. Great trip going.
Unfortunately my experience going back was not. We got picked up late due to Easter traffic and then in Somerset we had to wait a long time, due to someone being at the pick up area. A long and dark journey home - pretty unpleasant. Arrived pretty late.
A suggestion for the future - if someone is late or cannot be contacted, they should be left behind as it clearly states on the ticket, what time you need to be there for.
Also my ticket which I booked in March stated I was to be dropped off at Greenpoint Stadium which didn't happen - possibly an sms/email could've been sent to the change.
Unfortunately my experience going back was not. We got picked up late due to Easter traffic and then in Somerset we had to wait a long time, due to someone being at the pick up area. A long and dark journey home - pretty unpleasant. Arrived pretty late.
A suggestion for the future - if someone is late or cannot be contacted, they should be left behind as it clearly states on the ticket, what time you need to be there for.
Also my ticket which I booked in March stated I was to be dropped off at Greenpoint Stadium which didn't happen - possibly an sms/email could've been sent to the change.
Written 11 April 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sharon L
Dear traveller
Thank you for your review.
It’s hard to satisfy everyone especially with heavy traffic during holiday seasons and we really cannot do anything about that.
We did send a notice out per mail and sms of our change in pickup and drop off point in CT, maybe your mail is in our junk mail.
As to the waiting, yes we do not wait for late passengers but I do believe something we can assist passengers with a good reason as a once off.
Thanks
Sharon
Written 12 April 2023
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.
bgale1984
Seattle2 contributions
Jan 2023
Working with Gecko Tours was a fantastic experience! Knowing we had 3 days unplanned when we arrived in Cape Town South Africa before our official 21 day tour with another company we worked with Shannon to create a custom 3 day 2 night tour of the Garden Route. Our guide Eugene and all of the activities done were a wonderful way to start our month in Southern Africa. I would highly recommend Gecko Tours! Next time I will definitely spend more time in South Africa.
Written 13 February 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
M_Prabhakar1
Leeds, UK2 contributions
Nov 2022
We chose South Africa with Gecko tours for our honeymoon and it was the best trip of our lives! All the planning was taken care of and tailored to our needs, which made the trip straight forward. The Gecko team saved us countless of hours of planning our honeymoon, for which we are very grateful.
Our tour guide, Eugene, was really friendly, funny and knowledgeable - it was a real treat to learn the history of the local areas we travelled to from him.
Eugene also recommended adventure activities that we could do in different places (such as adventure caving and zip lining), and we liked that the tour was flexible to add in these options.
Overall, we would fully recommend Gecko tours to anyone, and we'd like to go with them again for future tours!
Thank you all for helping us have the best holiday ever!
Our tour guide, Eugene, was really friendly, funny and knowledgeable - it was a real treat to learn the history of the local areas we travelled to from him.
Eugene also recommended adventure activities that we could do in different places (such as adventure caving and zip lining), and we liked that the tour was flexible to add in these options.
Overall, we would fully recommend Gecko tours to anyone, and we'd like to go with them again for future tours!
Thank you all for helping us have the best holiday ever!
Written 28 January 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
RGrant
Seattle, WA4 contributions
Jan 2023
Eugene was our tour guide from landing in Cape Town for the 3 days following. We created a custom tour along the Garden Route to fit our travel schedule & it was wonderful!
He cheerfully picked us up from the airport on-time. Communication was excellent as well. We then traveled 5 hours to reach out destination & he was informative & conversational the entire time making this tired traveler enjoy the scenery & stay awake.
On the way to the Garden Route, we were lucky to spot baboons, we then headed to the Conga Caves & checked into our B&B- which was lovely.
After a long day an early morning awaited us to visit the meerkats at sunrise. We were treated with a very sweet show by them which was a wonderful start to our day.
From there, we went to the ostrich farm to learn about these fascinating creatures. We were able to stand on the eggs & even get an "ostrich massage!"
After, we then arrived at the elephant preserve where we were able to get out of the vehicle & encounter these gentle giants by feeding them then walking amongst them. There were zebras there too! DEFINITELY one of the highlights of the trip!!
We then enjoyed a safari where we enjoyed a menagerie of animals (missed the lion & hippo, but saw everything else!) which was an amazing experience! So cool to see so many wild animals co-habitating in the wild.
We were then dropped off back in Cape Town where we bid farewell to Eugene. Couldn't have asked for a better first experience!
Thank you! Rebecca G.
He cheerfully picked us up from the airport on-time. Communication was excellent as well. We then traveled 5 hours to reach out destination & he was informative & conversational the entire time making this tired traveler enjoy the scenery & stay awake.
On the way to the Garden Route, we were lucky to spot baboons, we then headed to the Conga Caves & checked into our B&B- which was lovely.
After a long day an early morning awaited us to visit the meerkats at sunrise. We were treated with a very sweet show by them which was a wonderful start to our day.
From there, we went to the ostrich farm to learn about these fascinating creatures. We were able to stand on the eggs & even get an "ostrich massage!"
After, we then arrived at the elephant preserve where we were able to get out of the vehicle & encounter these gentle giants by feeding them then walking amongst them. There were zebras there too! DEFINITELY one of the highlights of the trip!!
We then enjoyed a safari where we enjoyed a menagerie of animals (missed the lion & hippo, but saw everything else!) which was an amazing experience! So cool to see so many wild animals co-habitating in the wild.
We were then dropped off back in Cape Town where we bid farewell to Eugene. Couldn't have asked for a better first experience!
Thank you! Rebecca G.
Written 25 January 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sharon L
Dear Rebecca
Thank you for taking time to review us.
Eugene is an excellent guide and very passionate to show you the best South Africa has to offer.
We are looking forward to hosting any friends or family you are sending our way.
Thank you also for the beautiful pictures
Written 27 January 2023
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.
Miralda Reynecke
11 contributions
Dec 2022 • Solo
Thank you Gecko 🦎 Travel for making the journey to Cape Town and back such an effortless and relaxing experience for myself and my cat.
Thank you for being the ONLY shuttle service who were willing to accomodate my kitty cat in his carrier on board.
I also want to shout out 5 stars to excellent drivers and for their KIND and Friendly assistance!!! ( Thank you Rikus and Rey).
I will most definitely make use of your service again!
Thank you for being the ONLY shuttle service who were willing to accomodate my kitty cat in his carrier on board.
I also want to shout out 5 stars to excellent drivers and for their KIND and Friendly assistance!!! ( Thank you Rikus and Rey).
I will most definitely make use of your service again!
Written 14 December 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sharon L
ah thank you for your lovely review.
Our drivers love hosting passengers in a special way.
Written 27 January 2023
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.
HypnoTrix
1 contribution
Dec 2022
I travelled back from Cape Town yesterday and would like to compliment Rikus on his superb handling of the hectic weather. He drove with care and consideration to those of us onboard. Thank you for a top quality service.
Written 13 December 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
