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Cape Town Tours Actually Worth Booking (From a Local Photographer)
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items If you only have a few days in Cape Town, a good tour saves you hours of planning, parking and guesswork. These are the tours and experiences I'd book for visiting friends: peninsula drives, penguins, Robben Island, township food walks, wine trams an...
Sections
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Classic Day Trips
City, Culture & Hikes
On the Water
Classic Day Trips
The one tour I tell every first-time visitor to book. In a single day you get Chapman's Peak Drive, the African penguins at Boulders Beach, the cliffs and lighthouse at Cape Point, and usually ostriches and baboons along the way. Letting someone else...
Cape Peninsula Day Tour: Cape Point & Boulders Beach Penguins
Stellenbosch and Franschhoek are under an hour away, but tastings and driving don't mix, so a guided winelands tour is the smart way to do it. Most visit three or four estates with cheese or chocolate pairings and time to wander Cape Dutch gardens wi...
Cape Winelands Wine-Tasting Day Tour
Between roughly June and November, southern right whales come into Walker Bay to calve, and Hermanus has some of the best land-based whale watching in the world. A boat trip gets you much closer to breaching and tail-slapping whales, and the scenic d...
Hermanus Whale-Watching Day Trip
No time for Kruger? Aquila Private Game Reserve is about two hours from Cape Town in the Karoo, and a day trip includes a game drive to see elephants, rhinos, buffalo, giraffes and hippos, plus lions in a separate predator area. It's not a wild bush ...
Aquila Safari Day Trip (Big Five near Cape Town)
I know, it sounds touristy, but Cape Town's open-top bus is genuinely the easiest way to see the city without a car. The routes link the Waterfront, the cableway, Camps Bay, Kirstenbosch and even wine estates in Constantia, and you hop off wherever y...
Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Bus
City, Culture & Hikes
Skip the notoriously long ticket queue at the lower cable station by booking a timed ticket online. The rotating car turns 360 degrees on the five-minute ride up, and the flat summit has easy paths with views over the Twelve Apostles and Robben Islan...
Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Tickets & Activities
Lion's Head is easy to hike on your own, but a guided sunrise hike makes sense if you're new to the city: you start in the dark, a guide handles the route and the chains near the top, and you reach the summit as the sun lights up Table Mountain and t...
Cape Town: Lion's Head Sunrise Hike
The best way to understand Cape Town's food is to cook it with a Bo-Kaap family. You shop for spices, fold samoosas, roll rotis and cook a proper Cape Malay curry, then sit down together to eat everything you made. It's hands-on, delicious and full o...
Bo-Kaap Cape Malay Cooking Class
You haven't really seen Cape Town until you've visited its townships, where most of the city's people live. Go with a local guide from the community so the experience is respectful and the money stays local: expect markets, shebeens, street art, musi...
Half-Day Guided Township Tour
Cape Town has one of the most spectacular tandem paragliding launches on earth: you run off Signal Hill or Lion's Head and glide over Sea Point and Camps Bay before landing on the beach promenade. No experience needed, and most pilots offer GoPro pho...
Tandem Paragliding from Signal Hill or Lion's Head
On the Water
A half-day that stays with you. The ferry leaves from the V&A Waterfront, and on the island a former political prisoner often guides you through the cell block where Nelson Mandela was held. Tickets sell out weeks ahead in summer, and sailings ar...
Robben Island Tour (Ferry + Guided Prison Visit)
The ultimate adrenaline morning: an early pickup, a boat out of Gansbaai and a cage lowered into the water while sharks circle past. Be realistic, though: great whites have become rare here in recent years, and bronze whaler (copper) sharks are the m...
Shark Cage Diving in Gansbaai
The most joyful hour you can spend in the Atlantic. You float in a thick wetsuit off Duiker Island while dozens of playful Cape fur seals twist, somersault and peer into your mask. The water is cold (often 12 to 16 degrees) but the suits keep you sur...
Snorkelling with Seals in Hout Bay
A 90-minute sail out of the V&A Waterfront into Table Bay as the sun drops behind the Atlantic, usually with a glass of sparkling wine in hand. The view back to Table Mountain and Lion's Head glowing pink is one of the best in the city, and you'l...
Sunset Cruise from the V&A Waterfront
Paddle out from Three Anchor Bay in the early morning when the sea is glassy, with Lion's Head behind you and pods of dolphins often surfing alongside the kayaks. Seals, sunfish and even whales in season are regular sightings. No experience needed on...
Sea Kayaking with Dolphins, Sea Point