An independent Western Cape travel guide
Cape Town Travel Guide is an independently run editorial website covering Cape Town and the six tourism regions of the Western Cape. It is not an official tourism authority, and it has no government, provincial or trade-body affiliation. Nobody pays to be included.
It is a sister publication to Namibia Travel Guide, and follows the same editorial approach: destination guides built on official sources, written for independent travellers who are planning their own trips.
What we are trying to do
Most travel content about the Western Cape falls into one of two categories: promotional material produced by people with something to sell, or aggregated copy that recycles the same handful of facts without checking whether they are still true. A lot of it is genuinely out of date — still describing load-shedding as a daily fact of life, still listing an airport bus that stopped running in 2022, still recommending a museum that has permanently closed.
We are trying to do something narrower and more useful: explain what a place actually is, what it is like to visit, what it costs in time and effort, and what could go wrong. That means writing about wind, closures, driving distances and safety as honestly as about beaches and vineyards.
How we research
Operational detail — opening hours, fees, ferry sailings, park access, trail closures, permit requirements — is checked against primary sources at the time of writing. That usually means SANParks, CapeNature, the City of Cape Town, Cape Town Tourism, SANBI, Robben Island Museum, individual attraction operators, and government sources for legal and safety matters.
Where sources conflict, we say so rather than silently picking one. Where we cannot verify something, we say that too. We do not invent prices, times, distances or phone numbers, and we date-stamp figures that will go out of date. Our full approach is set out in the editorial policy.
What we are not
- We are not an official tourism body and we do not speak for one.
- We are not a booking agent and we do not handle reservations.
- We do not accept payment for coverage, placement or favourable treatment.
- We do not publish star ratings or review scores we cannot substantiate.
- We are not a substitute for checking official sources on anything time-critical.
Commercial relationships
The site may earn commission through affiliate links to accommodation and activity providers. This never determines what we cover or what we say about it. See the affiliate disclosure for detail.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know. Details of how to tell us, and how we handle it, are in the corrections policy. You can also just get in touch.