Festive season: Most expensive popular holiday routes in SA

South Africans who plan to travel long distances via road en route to their holiday destinations will be paying more than ever for fuel.

In a year of significant oil price increases and a weakening rand, South Africa’s petrol and diesel prices reached record levels.

As of December 2021, the inland prices for a litre of unleaded 95 and 93 petrol were R20.29 and R20.07, respectively.

The wholesale price of diesel was also at its highest level ever, which has trickled down to the retail price at the pumps.

What makes the equation even worse for holiday travellers is that they have to factor in toll fees.

While not the only option available, major highways like the N1, N2, N3, and N4 are often the best routes to many of the country’s prime holiday spots in terms of distance and road quality.

Unfortunately, maintaining these roads comes at a cost, so the concessionaires that operate them charge toll fees to their users.

We decided to see how much it would cost to travel on some of the country’s most popular routes, factoring in fuel costs and toll fees.

For our calculations, we used the fuel consumption of one of the country’s most popular cars — the VW Polo hatchback — as our main point of reference.

The most affordable model is the 1.4 Trendline, which has an average fuel consumption of 4l/100km. However, this is for ideal conditions on a highway.

Given that holiday-destined cars will likely be loaded with passengers and baggage, the combined fuel consumption of 5.9l/100km is perhaps more realistic.

With that consumption, you should be able to drive about 17km per litre of petrol.

We then calculated how much it would cost to cover the rough total distance of various popular routes using the price of unleaded 95 petrol.

While the most expensive trip was also on the longest route, between Johannesburg and Cape Town, it was cheaper than most of the other routes per kilometre.

This is because there is only one toll gate between Bloemfontein and Cape Town, within a distance of 1,005km, and it costs just R42.50 for a Class 1 vehicle.

That’s about a quarter of the cost of the toll fees between Pretoria and Polokwane, which covers around a quarter of the distance between Bloemfontein and Cape Town.

The most expensive route in terms of tolls is the N3 from Johannesburg to Durban, with R272 in tolls for a typical passenger vehicle.

However, it was still cheaper per kilometre than the N1 from Pretoria to Polokwane and the N4 from Pretoria to Nelspruit.

The table below shows the estimated cost of petrol and toll fees on a one-way trip along several popular holiday routes in South Africa, as of December 2021.

*Based on the inland price of R20.29 per litre
**Based on the coastal price of R19.57 per litre.

In other news – No jab, no job – Muvhango actors forced to vaccinate

The cast and crew of South African soap opera, SABC 2’s Muvhango will receive their covid-19 jabs. This is after they were given an ultimatum by the soapie creator Duma Ndlovu to vaccinate or lose their contracts.

About 200 members, including the cast, production personnel, and directors will be at the site joined by the Minister of Health Dr. Joe Phaahla, Gauteng MEC for Sport, Art, Culture, and Recreation Mbali Hlope, and the MEC for Health Dr. Nomathemba Mokgethi to receive jabs at the SABC offices in Auckland Park. Learn More