My next big adventure is . . .

My sister-in-law Lisa Quinn has the wonderful benefit of her job of getting to shop for unique things, especially when she's doing urban apartment makeovers on a budget and it is the aforementioned unique object that will give the room it's WOW. One such object was a zebra rug she bought on-line with the assurance of the seller that the skin was indeed Zebra that had been acquired legally as it had once belonged to the family pet, Zelda, who had previously grown-up in a loving petting zoo. Henceforth every zebra whether live or on a floor is known to me as Zelda.

What that has to do with my next big adventure I can't say except I'm going to a place where I will see lots of Zeldas in their native habitat. After months of trying to figure out where I wanted to go next - Istanbul, Croatio, Uruguay, Ecuador or a cross-country trailer trip with Cowgirl, it came to me in the form of a great airfare offer.

I signed up for a site called nextvacay.com which publishes great fares to major travel destinations from airports in your market. It's $25 a year to join but it's already paid off for me. I got an alert for a $750 round trip airfare to Johannesburg, South Africa on Virgin Atlantic. The timing was great, the price was right and I jumped in a few hours later buying my ticket on my smart phone in the break room over lunch.

Several years back I was out with a group of international entertainment industry executives discussing favorite cities. This is a sophisticated group who travel around the world regularly and the list of cities was varied. But every single one of them agreed that Cape Town, South Africa was one of their favorite cities in the world.

So Cape Town here I come. Jo'burg is merely my entry and exit point. I'll be taking overnight train services to Cape Town and back to Jo'burg from Durban. There are lions, and elephants and rhinoceros to see, there is much great wine to drink, beaches to see and the Indian Ocean to swim in. I'll keep you updated along the way as I travel solo and know that the loneliness is helped when I share it here.