South Africa is a country with many different cultures and traditions. Within the last five years, many projects have been launched to meet the increasing demand of tourists who are eager to learn more about the cultures and traditions of the people from whom they were separated under apartheid.

These projects are often in the form of a cultural village, where the traditional lifestyle of the people is shown to the visitor in an environment that encourages him to be a part of it. Aspects like traditional dances and rituals in the rural areas as well as the urban and township milieu that gives South Africa some of its defining features.

For example, all the traditions of the Basotho people have been preserved in the Basotho Cultural Village, which is situated about 20 km from the Golden Gate National Park and lies within the QwaQwa National Park.

Here Basotho huts from the sixteenth century to the present day are displayed. People in traditional dress play different roles to accurately depict the lifestyle and architecture of the South Sotho.

You will have the opportunity to sip some traditional beer and to consult the ngaka, the captain's advisor, in his professional capacity as traditional healer and to allow him to enlighten you as he has been doing for centuries.

At Kosi Bay in Maputaland on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast, a community owned tourism camp has been established around the house where David Webster, an anthropologist who was assassinated by one of the apartheid government's death squads, did extensive field work in this area during the 1980s.

This tented camp is located on the shores of Lake Bangazi, the biggest of the lakes in the Kosi estuarine system.

Further south in the same province, located in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, is a four-star luxury hotel complex called Shakaland. Not as informal and spontaneous as the Kosi project, this site contains a perfectly constructed Zulu kraal dating back to King Shaka's time. There are 40 huts making up the umuzi (village).

The Botshabelo historical town, 12km west of Middelburg in Mpumalanga province, was set up by the Middelburg town council as a "typical" Ndebele village to portray a century-old culture which probably no longer exists in its original form.

Another traditional Ndebele village is a short journey away from Cullinan to the north-east of Pretoria. Situated near Bronkhorstspruit, the village provides demonstrations of traditional artwork forms, including beadwork, weaving and the famous Ndebele hut painting.

Groot Marico in the North-West Province is one of the places first settled by the Voortrekkers in the Transvaal. There is a Mampoer Tour of the region which allows you to taste the extraordinarily powerful alcohol made from brewing indigenous fruit.

There is a cultural tour to old farm houses where bread is still baked in an outside oven. You can also enjoy some gemmer bier (ginger beer) and melk tert (milk tart) which are traditional boere geregte (cuisine).

At Lesedi cultural village, less than an hour's drive from Johannesburg, a kaleidoscope of African cultures awaits you. It is a multi-cultural African village set amongst the pristine bushveld and rocky hills. Typical rural households from Zulu, Xhosa, Pedi and Basotho villages have been reconstructed. Visitors to Lesedi become house guests of a traditional African family.

Tlholego in Magaliesburg, about 80km north-west of Johannesburg, was once an eroded cattle farm. With concentrically arranged residential units, a solar heating system, composting toilets, flourishing perma-culture gardens and Iron Age ruins belonging to ancient Tswana tribes nearby, it represent both a fascinating tourist destination and a model of the principles of rural self-sufficiency.

For Johannesburg visitors who want to see a stranger slice of South Africa's ethnic life, Soweto has the spot. In Dobsonville there is a garden that houses an exhibition of sculptures by traditional healer Credo Mutwa. It is called Home of the Story.

These are just a few of the opportunities for cultural travel that South Africa now offers.