Day Trips from Angola

Northeast of Luanda, 105-meter curtains of water spill over black basalt cliffs, throwing up perpetual rainbows in the spray. Miombo woodland hums with birdlife, and the viewing platforms are usually yours alone.

Angola's flagship wildlife reserve holds elephants, giraffes, and the rare giant sable antelope. Floodplain grasslands run to the horizon, broken by fever trees and termite mounds like earthen cathedrals.

A slender sand spit curls into the Atlantic, lined with coconut palms and weekend beach bars. The water shifts from jade to cobalt, and boatmen ferry you to deserted coves where sea stars litter the shallows.

Colonial train-station architecture meets Atlantic beaches in this relaxed city. The coastal highway drops rust-colored cliffs into turquoise water, where fishermen mend nets on rocky outcrops.

Engineering madness carved into granite cliffs, this serpentine road climbs 1,500 meters through 56 hairpin turns. From the top you look across three climate zones, from humid coastal plain to cool highland plateau.

The plateau ends in 1,000-meter cliffs dropping to the coastal plain, a geological freak show of burnt-orange rock formations at sunset. Silence is broken only by raptors riding thermals below your feet.