About Us

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The Tankwa Camino is a modern-day version of the "Great Trek" that takes participants through one of South Africa's most beautiful areas, the Tankwa Karoo. The journey requires inner strength and a strong mind, but it is also considered a spiritual pilgrimage as much as a test of physical endurance. As Jim Rohn said, "Your emotions need to be as educated as your intellect. It is important to know how to feel, respond, and let life in... so that it can touch you." The Tankwa Camino offers the perfect opportunity to allow life in.

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Hiking the Camino, the Tankwa desert will become your drug for ten days as you walk through one of the most extraordinary landscapes in Africa. This landscape is so beautiful that it makes you realise that God is in all the details. The Tankwa Karoo offers a place where time and distance are stretched, horizons dance and disappear, and every corner brings a startling new vista. But in that magical hour before dark, when the flat, harsh, grey and brown tones start turning to red, purple, and chocolate brown, you will vow to return.

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Your epic Camino journey will take you through vastly different landscapes, only imagined by many and one that will stay with you long after you've shaken the Karoo dust from your hiking gear.

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How it all started

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The idea for the Tankwa Camino came from founder Danie Pieterse's dream to walk from his grandfather's grave in the Tankwa Karoo to his other grandfather's grave in Rawsonville. Danie shared this idea with his friend Charl van der Merwe, and soon, the idea for a similar pilgrimage arose in the form of the Tankwa Camino. The main idea behind the Camino was to introduce people to this beautiful part of our country that connects Calvinia (in the Northern Cape) with Ceres (in the Western Cape) through the Tankwa Karoo.

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The Tankwa Karoo, with its raw beauty and tranquillity, has increasingly captured the imagination of tourists in recent years with the opening of the Tankwa Karoo National Park and the annual Afrikaburn event.

The first Tankwa Camino was a huge success, with interest streaming in from all over the country—Danie, his wife Rhina, and his family plan on doing the hike annually. The Tankwa Camino GIVES BACK initiative supports all hikers participating in the Tankwa Camino as part of a charity organisation.