Travel to Cape Town

contained within a mountainous national park

Cape Town is located in the Western Cape region of South Africa.
Arguably the most alluring and captivating city on the continent, if not in the world, Cape Town is somewhere which even the least urban visitors can enjoy.

Set within the folds of a mountainous national park, you are never more than a few minutes from the start of a great hiking trail.

The city is friendly, easy to navigate and, in many parts, extremely upmarket.

There’s a huge range of excellent accommodation options, from conventionally upmarket larger hotels, to some of the finest and most polished small guest-houses in the world.

The Cape Town area offers such an incredible range of activities that there is plenty to keep you busy for at least 4 or 5 days. Returning visitors often stay a lot longer.

Cape Town features in a very high proportion of trips to Southern Africa, a dose of high culture and civility to contrast with the vast and raw purity of the safari areas. The area also helps to keep budgets under control, since it offers such great value for money.

Geography

The Cape Peninsula is the small hook of land which projects from the extreme southwestern corner of the continent.

It’s an extremely beautiful and fascinating part of the world, of wonderful natural landscapes, historic settlements, urban and outdoor activities and fine accommodations, a place in which it is worth spending a considerable amount of time.
No surprise that early European explorers decided to site their reprovisioning stations in the lee of Table Bay and that Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck chose to first settle here in 1652.

To this day Cape Town continues to boast some of the prime real-estate in the world, with property prices comparable with those in London or New York.

The peninsula is a very pronounced geographical feature, with a range of mountains running down its spine, culminating in the great facade of Table Mountain at the northern end, looking out over the City Bowl of Cape Town itself.

The peninsula is connected to the rest of Africa by low-lying sand flats, which run northeast towards the mountains of Somerset West and the Cape Winelands.

From a distance, and particularly when viewed from the ocean, the mountains of the Cape Peninsula appear to be islands raised out of the sea and disconnected with the mainland. In fact over geological time there have been considerable periods where this has indeed been the case.

The peninsula is dominated by Table Mountain National Park, which covers not only the mountain after which it’s named, but the majority of higher ground all the way south to the Cape of Good Hope.

The city and its various suburbs are contained within the valleys and lining the beaches in and around these mountain reserves. The whole peninsula therefore feels distinctly un-urban, even people who usually hate cities love Cape Town, there is room to breathe here. It’s easy to get out and hike the mountains every day if you wish, or to go surfing or paddle-boarding off the superb Atlantic beaches.

It is extremely important to appreciate that the Western Cape of South Africa has a very different climate from virtually everywhere else on the continent.

In fact the climate here is not only different, but almost completely opposite to the seasonality in most safari areas, which can really add a curve ball into planning a trip.

The Western Cape has what is known officially as a Mediterranean climate, but being in the Southern Hemisphere, the timing is reversed.

Summer : Nov-Mar

The summer season in Cape Town is characterised by comfortably warm temperatures, both day and night, usually with only the occasional light rain shower. Daylight peaks at around 14.5 hours, with plenty of sunshine. The only significant potential negative is that the south-easterly wind, known as the Cape Doctor, can be quite relentless at times, meaning that accommodation on the northwest side of the mountains can be slightly preferable.

Autumn/Fall : Apr-May

The autumn/fall season in Cape Town represents the standard transition from a hot dry summer to a cool wet winter, with conditions generally remaining pleasant and comfortable, but with increasing chances of occasional prolonged showers and overcast skies.

Winter : Jun-Sep

The winter season in Cape Town is relatively mild, with day time temperatures still reaching 17C/63F. However the daylight hours are shorter (bottoming out around 10 hours). Rainfall is rather higher (peaking around 95mm/4″ in June), but tends to come in bursts, as storms roll in off the surrounding oceans, long overcast periods are rare and there’s usually plenty of mild sunshine in the mix.

Spring : Sep-Oct

The spring season in Cape Town represents the standard transition from a cool wet winter to a hot dry summer, with conditions generally being pleasant and comfortable, but still with a chance of occasional prolonged showers.

Getting there

Cape Town is usually accessed via the main international airport, which is located on the Cape Flats, about half an hour by road to the northeast of the city centre.
Although one might expect a city of this stature to have a strong network of worldwide connections, in reality it is often necessary to route via Johannesburg, especially when coming in from Asia, Australasia or North America.

The city is reasonably well connected to other parts of Africa, notably with direct flights to Windhoek, Maun, Victoria Falls and Kruger. But for locations further afield, notably East Africa and the Indian Ocean, it is usually necessary to route via Johannesburg.

Once in the Western Cape, the majority of our guests pick up a self-drive vehicle at the airport, but it is also possible to connect the various locations by guided road transfers if you don’t fancy driving.

Where to stay

Cape Town area is renowned for having a mind-boggling range of accommodation.
To help you make your choice of where to stay we have divided the city into a number of smaller neighbourhoods, each of which has a very distinct geography, atmosphere and character.

The specific area in which you choose to stay will have a major impact on your experience. They are listed in order of descending popularity amongst our guests …

Oranjezicht is a very quiet upmarket residential suburb at the upper southern end of the City Bowl, with easy access to all areas and containing some of the very best boutique guest-houses.

Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is the tourist hub of the city, with lots of historic interest, shops, bars and restaurants. There’s some very good larger hotels here, but they are perhaps best suited to very short 1 or 2 night stays.

Tamboerskloof is a pleasant suburb slightly closer to the city centre, less exclusive and salubrious but with a good range of often competitively priced guest-house accommodation, within walking distance of many bars and restaurants (although walking after dark is not recommended).

Camps Bay is a separate settlement on a beautiful beach, a residential suburb with a pleasantly busy strip and some interesting small hotels.

Bantry Bay and Clifton is an upmarket residential suburb on the Atlantic Coast, slightly inconvenient for seeing the sights, but providing some protection from the summer winds. The area contains some very upmarket boutique accommodations.
Green Point lies on the northwest Atlantic Coast. It’s mainly bland residential high-rise buildings on land reclaimed from the ocean, but there are some interesting older streets on the lower sloped of Signal Hill with some pleasant boutique guest-houses.

City Centre is the main commercial high-rise area with some busy shopping and entertainment areas, but not somewhere we generally recommend for our guests to stay.

Llandudno is a very exclusive residential settlement set around a pretty bay on the west coast, below Camps Bay. Unfortunately accommodation options are in short supply in this very uncommercial area.

Hout Bay is a larger settlement further south on the Cape Peninsula, home to the commercial fishing fleet and renowned for its horse-riding centres. There’s a couple of modest lower cost accommodation options down here.

Constantia is the area that lies to the east side of the Cape Mountains, containing a number of historic wineries, some very upmarket suburbs and golf courses.
Kommetjie is a small fishing village much further to the south, with a fabulous broad sandy beach and a laid back feel but a long way from the attractions of the city.

very important to stay in the right areas