Cape Town Travel Guide: What to See, Eat & When to Visit

Cape Town sits at the southwestern tip of Africa, wrapped around Table Bay in South Africa’s Western Cape province, with the flat-topped bulk of Table Mountain rising 1,086 metres directly behind the city bowl. It is a city of unusual geography: within about forty minutes of the central business district you can be standing on a mountain plateau, swimming off a white-sand Atlantic beach, walking through 300-year-old vineyards, or watching African penguins waddle across granite boulders. The Cape Peninsula narrows south of the city into a 50-kilometre finger of protected mountain and coast that ends at Cape Point, where the cold Atlantic and the warmer waters of False Bay meet.

Founded in 1652 as a Dutch East India Company refreshment station for ships rounding the Cape on the spice route, Cape Town is the oldest European-established city in South Africa and is still known locally as the Mother City. It is the country’s legislative capital, home to Parliament, and the endpoint of some of the world’s great overland journeys — roughly 1,600 rail kilometres from Pretoria across the Highveld, the Great Karoo and the Hex River Mountains. Arriving here by train, rather than flying in, is the classic way to feel that distance: Palace Tours’ Rovos Rail programmes run Cape Town northbound and southbound, and longer itineraries link the city all the way to Dar es Salaam.

What to see in Cape Town

• Table Mountain and the Aerial Cableway — The city’s defining landmark and part of Table Mountain National Park. A rotating cable car climbs to the plateau in about five minutes, or you can hike up Platteklip Gorge. The summit gives a full sweep of the city bowl, Table Bay and the Twelve Apostles ridge.
• Robben Island — The UNESCO World Heritage island prison in Table Bay where Nelson Mandela was held for eighteen of his twenty-seven years. Ferries leave from the V&A Waterfront, and tours are led by former political prisoners.
• Bo-Kaap — The historic Cape Malay quarter on the slopes of Signal Hill, famous for its cobbled streets and brightly painted houses. It is also home to the Auwal Mosque, established in 1794 and the oldest in South Africa, and to family-run spice shops that have traded here for generations.
• V&A Waterfront — A working harbour turned waterfront district, with the Zeitz MOCAA museum of contemporary African art housed in a converted grain silo, the Two Oceans Aquarium, craft markets and a wide choice of restaurants looking back at Table Mountain.
• Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope — At the southern end of the peninsula, a dramatic headland of sea cliffs, fynbos and a Victorian lighthouse reached by a funicular or a short climb. The drive down passes Chapman’s Peak, one of the most spectacular coastal roads anywhere.
• Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town — A sheltered cove where a colony of African penguins nests among granite boulders, viewed from raised boardwalks. Simon’s Town itself is a naval village of Victorian shopfronts on the False Bay side.
• Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden — Set on Table Mountain’s eastern slopes, Kirstenbosch is devoted to indigenous South African flora, particularly Cape fynbos, proteas and ericas. The Boomslang canopy walkway curves through the treetops.
• Constantia wine estates — The oldest wine-producing region in the southern hemisphere, with Groot Constantia dating to 1685. The valley is fifteen minutes from the city and known for its sauvignon blanc and its sweet Vin de Constance.
• District Six Museum — A small, powerful museum in the city centre recording the forced removals of the apartheid era, told through the possessions, street signs and testimony of the community that was displaced.

What to eat in Cape Town

Cape Town’s cooking is a genuine hybrid: Dutch and Huguenot settler food, the spice traditions brought by enslaved and exiled people from Java, Sumatra and Bengal, and indigenous ingredients from the Cape coast. The signature Cape Malay dishes are bobotie, a lightly curried minced-meat bake under a savoury egg custard, usually served with yellow rice and raisins; rich, sweet-sour lamb denningvleis; and fragrant Cape Malay curries that are far milder than their Indian ancestors. Street and market food runs to samoosas, spiced koesisters — the Cape’s syrupy, coconut-rolled version, quite different from the plaited Afrikaans koeksister — and the Gatsby, an enormous shared sandwich of chips, masala steak or polony invented in Athlone.

Being a port city, the seafood is excellent and unfussy: snoek, a local barracuda-like fish, braaied over coals with apricot jam or served smoked; line-caught kingklip and hake; West Coast mussels and Saldanha oysters. Meat lovers should try a proper braai with coils of boerewors, and pick up biltong — air-dried, coriander-spiced cured meat — as a snack. For something sweet, order melktert, a cinnamon-dusted milk tart, or Hertzoggies, apricot-jam and coconut tartlets. Drink Constantia or Stellenbosch wine, a Cape brandy, or caffeine-free rooibos, grown only in the Cederberg mountains a few hours north.

Shopping & crafts

The Watershed at the V&A Waterfront gathers several hundred South African makers under one roof and is the most reliable single stop for craft. Greenmarket Square in the city centre is an open-air market of masks, textiles and beadwork from across the continent, where haggling is expected. For contemporary design and food, the Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock runs on Saturdays. Look for Ndebele and Zulu beadwork, telephone-wire baskets, indigo Shweshwe cotton, ostrich leather, Cape Malay spice blends bought loose from the Bo-Kaap, and rooibos or buchu tea to take home.

Best time to visit

Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate, so its dry season is the southern-hemisphere summer, roughly November to March, with long warm days and reliably clear mountain views. Midsummer also brings the south-easterly wind known as the Cape Doctor, which can close the cableway; February and March tend to be the warmest and calmest months. Winter, June to August, is green, wet and much quieter, with lower prices and dramatic light. Whale watching along the Cape coast peaks between July and November, and spring wildflowers appear on the West Coast in August and September. October to November and March to April are the sweet spots for combining good weather with fewer crowds.

Good to know

• The Table Mountain cableway shuts without much warning in high wind or cloud, and the last cars down fill quickly. Go on your first clear morning rather than saving it for the end of your stay.
• Robben Island ferries are frequently cancelled in heavy swell and sell out well in advance in high season. Book early and keep a spare day.
• South Africa drives on the left. The currency is the rand (ZAR); cards are accepted almost everywhere, but carry some cash for markets and tips. Around 10 percent is standard in restaurants, and car guards are usually given small change.
• The city is spread out and the peninsula drive is a full day. Hire a car or a driver-guide for Cape Point, Boulders and Constantia; the MyCiTi bus and metered or e-hail cars work well within the city bowl and to the Waterfront.
• Take normal city precautions: avoid walking alone after dark, keep valuables out of sight on the beach and at viewpoints, and hike Table Mountain in a group on marked routes rather than alone.