Kingsley Holgate, the grey-bearded adventurer from KwaZulu-Natal, left Durban on Monday at the start of a 10 000km journey to promote wildlife parks without man-made borders.
Holgate, 63, will also be kicking soccer balls around the subcontinent to advertise the 2010 soccer World Cup and the wealth of nature-based tourism attractions which foreign visitors can enjoy after the football tournament.
Holgate has undertaken several adventures including a Cape-to-Cairo expedition in 1993 and a circumnavigation of the world along the Tropic of Capricorn.
His latest expedition, under the title "Boundless Southern Africa", left from Durban's International Convention Centre, where thousands of delegates and exhibitors had gathered for the annual Indaba travel show.
From there, Holgate and his crew will head for the mountains of Lesotho and snake their way north to Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Angola, before moving south to Namibia to complete their journey at the mouth of the Orange River.
During the four-month trip, Holgate's expedition will pass through seven trans-frontier parks - conservation areas intended to break down the man-made lines on the map of Africa, which restrict the movement of wildlife and tourists.
The concept was pioneered by the Peace Parks Foundation in the late 1990s and endorsed by several governments across Africa.
According to the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department, the aim of the Boundless Southern Africa initiative is to create a single brand name which allows several countries to benefit economically from larger volumes of nature-based tourism.
As far back as 2004, senior ministers from several southern African nations passed a resolution to spread the benefits of the World Cup and use the event to showcase some of the continent's premier international tourist destinations.
Holgate's expedition will pass through seven trans-frontier areas - Maloti-Drakensberg, Lubombo, Great Limpopo, Limpopo-Shashe, Kavango-Zambezi, Kgalagadi and Ai Ais-Richtersveld.
Several friendly soccer games have also been arranged along the route to raise awareness about the 2010 World Cup and the Boundless Southern Africa theme.