u/Appropriate_Volume

About me: I'm an Australian with an interest in history and art. I visited South Africa for work last year, and decided to return for a holiday after having had a good experience. I've long had an interest in South Africa's history, including the Apartheid era, and was keen to learn more about this as part of the trip. I also enjoy reading books about South Africa, so wanted to visit lots of bookshops.

Trip Length: 1-17 June

Destinations: Cape Town (7 days), organised safari to Kruger National Park and surrounds (4 days), Johannesburg (5 days)

Accommodation: Airport hotel at Johannesburg (OK), apartment hotel in Sea Point in Cape Town (excellent), safari lodge near Kruger (simple but pretty good), upmarket hotel in Rosebank in Johannesburg (reasonably priced, but a bit odd)

Activities:

Cape Town

• I started with a half day walking tour of the CBD which was a good way to orient myself to the city.
• I also joined one of the tours to the Apartheid-era prison on Robben Island (by turning up and buying a ticket). This was very rewarding, but also very confronting given that the tour through the prison was led by one of the former political prisoners who had been held there. I needed to ditch my plans for the afternoon after this and go for a walk to think through what I'd heard. Note that the boats out to the island don't run to their advertised schedule, so turn up at least half an hour early.
• I did a day trip to Simon's Town to the south of the city by commuter train. This was really fun, and the train was pretty easy to use and safe (the only quirk is that you need to line up and buy tickets at the station as there are no ticket machines or online options). I liked Simon's Town a lot, and wished I'd spent a night there.
• I did an African food cooking class at a restaurant, which was fun and interesting.
• I visited lots of art galleries and museums. The stand-out highlight was the excellent Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. The South African National Art Gallery was pretty good, though obviously under-funded, and there were some good small private galleries along Church Street in the CBD. The South African Air Force Museum was also good, but note most of it is only open on Saturdays - this isn't made clear online.
• I went to a classical music concert at the Baxter Theatre at the University of Cape Town. This is an amazing venue and the concert was fun.
• The Two Oceans Aquarium is a bit worn out, but very interesting.
• On one of the weekend days, I went to the Neighbourgoods Market, which had great food and shopping options.
• Cape Town has lots of good book shops. I particularly liked The Book Lounge.

That said, I was a bit underwhelmed by Cape Town: it's a very popular and hyped destination at the moment, but I thought it was a second-best type of place compared to similar-sized cities in Europe, Australia or Asia. There are lots of good things to do, but few of them are genuinely world-class. I had a worthwhile and interesting week in the city, but don't see any reason to return.

Safari

• I booked a 4 day safari package based at a small lodge at a private reserve that forms part of the greater Kruger National Park. I chose it as it looked to be particularly good value, and it was - it included 6 game drives (including a full day in Kruger National Park) over 4 days as well as accommodation and most meals. The highlight was doing a walk at dawn through part of the private reserve.
• I was worried that I'd be the only solo traveller in the safari lodge, but about half of the guests were solo. Due to the way we were cycled through activities, I hung out with a consistent group of people, which was fun.
• The program for the safari was very busy though - we were up by 5:30 am most mornings and didn't finish until 7 pm at the earliest.
• Kruger National Park is really well run. The roads are excellent, the rest stops are clean and have genuinely good food and coffee, etc.
• I flew into Hoedspruit Airport from Cape Town and was driven to Johannesburg at the end of the safari. The drive turned out to be much longer and much duller than I expected, so I'd recommend doing fly in-fly out, especially as air fares in South Africa are reasonable.

I really enjoyed the safari and would strongly recommend this kind of model to solo travellers. A fully solo safari wouldn't be much fun, as it's good to have a guide and other people keeping an eye out for animals during the day and to have people to chat with about the day over dinner.

Johannesburg

• I spent most of a day doing a historical walk through Soweto organised by the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, tracing the route of the 16 June 1976 student protests that were brutally attacked by the police and led to an important upsurge in protest activity nationally. This was an incredible experience, as at the end we were joined by Seth Mazibuko, who had been the deputy organiser of the protests. He explained the events of the day in detail and took us to the site of the shootings and his old high school. Mr Mazibuko is an inspiring man. The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation runs walks most weekends, and I'd strongly recommend them.
• I also did a half day tour of Johannesburg CBD with a guide. This was really interesting, though there were some eccentric elements (we got yelled at by a security guard for taking photos at one stage, and the guard forced me to delete the photos of the building he was protecting!). The CBD was much safer-seeming than I expected, but I wouldn't recommend walking around most of it by yourself. As the guide noted, I was pretty much the only white person on the streets, so I stood out!
• Other places I visited included the Apartheid Museum (excellent), Constitution Hill (very good) Johannesburg Zoo (underfunded but very good), National Military History Museum (interesting but eccentric), Wits University Art Gallery (very good) and Wits Origin Centre (excellent).
• I bought lots of souvenirs at the excellent Rosebank Market, which is run in the car park of Rosebank Mall on Sundays. Shop around if you visit, as while most vendors are selling similar (and mass produced) things there are several stalls selling unique items at very fair prices.
• Love Books was my favourite bookshop.

Johannesburg was interesting, but I found it hard to get my head around as it's such a sprawling and diverse place. The extensive security everywhere was, ironically, a bit unnerving. I strongly recommend doing some walking tours rather than being driven everywhere.

What Went Right: This was a bit of an unconventional itinerary: I mainly visited cities, didn't go up Table Mountain, didn't see the penguins on the Cape of Good Hope and spent quite a bit of time in Johannesburg. It reflected my interests though, and I was pleased with it.

The food and coffee in South Africa is generally great. I had a few disappointing meals, but also lots of amazing ones. An unexpected highlight was very cheap and very tasty African-style steak from a food van at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg.

South Africans are generally very friendly and welcoming to visitors. Expect to be asked a lot about your background (including your family) and your views on the country. There was some surprise about me being a solo traveller, especially in Johannesburg, but there were quite a few solo travellers around everywhere.

What Went Wrong: Not much really. My first day in Cape Town was affected by very strong winds, which are apparently quite common in winter, but I was able to do what I was aiming to that day.

I also got mild food poisoning from eating from a vendor with obviously poor food handling standards at the Mojo Market in Cape Town (I knew I shouldn't have eaten the food, but was too hungry and lazy to throw it out and order something else), but that's about it.

Most South Africans are people of faith and they take this quite seriously, and I found that lots of attractions were closed on Sundays: on both Sundays I was in the country, I ended up needing to finish up early as I ran out of things to do.

Safety: This is obviously a big concern for people considering travelling to South Africa. I didn't have any issues, but I did take far more precautions than I usually do when travelling, especially in Johannesburg. I felt comfortable walking around Cape Town by myself during the day, but used Ubers at night even over short distances. For Johannesburg, I got Ubers pretty much everywhere.

The usual advice for tourists to South Africa notes that crime is pretty rare in touristy places as they're in safe areas and/or well protected, and this was my experience. In Johannesburg in particular, most places tourists are likely to go are behind walls protected by security guards. There are police and security guards patrolling Cape Town CBD and the V&A Waterfront is a fortress.

Some advice notes risks of baggage handlers raiding bags at OR Tambo airport and possibly other airports. This appears to be outdated, though a small minority of locals were paying to have their bags wrapped. I had no issues with my checked suitcase, which went though OR Tambo airport 3 times over the trip.

Recommendations:

• Due to the exchange rate and low wages, prices are generally very reasonable. Places aimed at tourists or rich locals can be rip offs though (for instance, the Time Out Market in Cape Town), so shop around.
• The South African tourism industry is large and sophisticated, so shop around for tours, accommodation, food, etc, as there is usually a wide range of good quality options.
• That said, there's also a sub-industry of people selling unnecessary guided tours of specific places, which I imagine that people buy due to security concerns. For instance, you don't need a guide to pick you up from your hotel and take you through the Apartheid Museum, but quite a few people at the museum had clearly paid for this and were being rushed through the place by bored-looking guides.
• It seems that you generally don't book safaris through a single click type option, as there is a tradition of contacting a few for quotes. They then send you a link to book once you confirm you want to go ahead. This is a bit clunky, but allows you to tailor packages to your preferences as part of requesting quotes. I ended up creating a spreadsheet to evaluate the different options I was considering, as they had quite different features.
• Few local or national government-run attractions have hand soap in the bathrooms and some lack even toilet paper, so keep sanitiser and some TP in your day bag. A notable exception is Kruger National Park, which had great bathrooms even in remote rest stops. I had no issues with privately run places.
• I had a few occasions where cafes at attractions I was relying on for lunch turned out to be closed or were overrun. Pack snacks to tide you over: I ended up having some very late lunches!

Final Verdict: This was a really enjoyable trip. Kruger National Park was the highlight, but the opportunities to hear directly from freedom fighters on Robben Island and Soweto were really rewarding.

I found the need to be driven around almost everywhere a bit frustrating, as I prefer to travel fully independently on public transport. I don't think I'd visit a similar type of country as a result.

South Africa is definitely doable for solo travellers and I'd recommend visiting.

Pictures:

• Cape Town
• Kruger National Park
• Johannesburg