3 days in Johannesburg

Day by day

1. Day 1: Apartheid Museum and Gold Reef City

   Apartheid Museum, Gold Reef City and Constitution Hill, then Nelson Mandela Bridge in the evening.

   1. Morning

      Apartheid Museum

      Opened in 2001 next to Gold Reef City, the museum tells the story of racial segregation from the gold-rush era to the 1994 elections through film, photographs, documents and personal testimony.

   2. Late morning

      Gold Reef City

      Book the underground mine tour separately when you arrive; it is the part that explains how Johannesburg came to exist.

   3. Lunch

      Lunch: Braai

      Steakhouses and shisa nyama butcheries; Heritage Day (24 September) is informally called National Braai Day.

   4. Afternoon

      Constitution Hill

      This former prison complex held Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and thousands of ordinary South Africans arrested under pass laws.

   5. Evening

      Nelson Mandela Bridge

      Photograph it from the Braamfontein side in the early evening, and leave by car or ride-hailing rather than walking at night.

2. Day 2: Vilakazi Street and Mandela House and Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum

   Vilakazi Street and Mandela House, Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum and Soweto by bicycle or with a local guide, then Braamfontein in the evening.

   1. Morning

      Vilakazi Street and Mandela House

      Visit with a local guide who can add stories of the 1976 uprising, then eat lunch at one of the Vilakazi Street restaurants.

   2. Late morning

      Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum

      On 16 June 1976 police opened fire on students protesting against Afrikaans-language schooling, and 12-year-old Hector Pieterson was among those killed.

   3. Lunch

      Lunch: Boerewors roll

      Weekend markets such as the Rosebank Sunday Market, and stadium and roadside stalls.

   4. Afternoon

      Soweto by bicycle or with a local guide

      Choose a Soweto-based operator and add lunch at a local shisa nyama to the tour.

   5. Evening

      Braamfontein

      Rooftop bars, craft-beer spots and old-school pubs near Wits University, best in the early evening.

3. Day 3: Orlando Towers and Maboneng street art and galleries

   Orlando Towers, Maboneng street art and galleries and Nelson Mandela Square, then Melville 7th Street in the evening.

   1. Morning

      Orlando Towers

      Two decommissioned power-station cooling towers in Soweto, painted with murals and advertising, now host a bungee jump swinging between the towers and a viewing platform with panoramas over the township.

   2. Late morning

      Maboneng street art and galleries

      Visit on a Sunday daytime when the precinct is busiest, and join a guided walk to go beyond the precinct safely.

   3. Lunch

      Lunch: Pap and chakalaka

      Shisa nyama spots in Soweto, township restaurants on Vilakazi Street and most braai menus.

   4. Afternoon

      Nelson Mandela Square

      A paved piazza within the Sandton City complex, overlooked by a six-metre bronze statue of Nelson Mandela unveiled in 2004.

   5. Evening

      Melville 7th Street

      A strip of bars and restaurants with a student and creative crowd and live music on some nights.

Before you go

If it rains

• Swap in Origins Centre (Braamfontein): Do it the day before visiting the Cradle of Humankind; the context makes the fossil sites far more meaningful.

Where to stay for this itinerary

With 3 nights, Sandton keeps most of this route within easy reach. For a calmer or cheaper base, Rosebank ($$$) suits first-timers, couples, food lovers and culture. Compare every area.

Pace and daylight

The sights in this plan add up to roughly 16–22 hours of visiting over 3 days, before meals and getting between them. Daylight runs from about 10.5 hours in June to 13.8 hours in December.

More or fewer days

• One day in Johannesburg
• 2 days in Johannesburg

Questions travellers ask