South Africa Travel: Things To Know Before You Go

The first of about 100 South Africa travel posts – are you ready? Today I’m sharing some travel tips to know before you go, including what you might want to bring with you, mentally prepare yourself for and more. If you’re planning a trip to South Africa or simply curious, today’s travel post is for you!

South Africa Travel: Things To Know Before You Go

Normal converters will not work. Yes, even the multiple country converter packs. South Africa has a special plug they use and you will need to purchase a special converter separately from any packs you probably already own if you want to be able to plug things in to charge — namely cell phones and camera batteries.

Americans do not need visas to travel to South Africa. Unlike other African countries, South Africa does not require a visa for entry for tourists.

Uber is a great option. Sometimes I get nervous using Uber (both in the U.S. and abroad!) but we found it to be completely reliable and safe in South Africa. To note – if you have Uber credits on your account as an American, you won’t be able to use them. We don’t know why this is, but ours did not work/were not redeemable. 

Cape Town feels like an American city. We were shocked to land in Cape Town and realize that it was completely different than any other African city we had been to and honestly, we felt like we were in the States. It’s very clean, very industrialized (and touristy all at the same time) and there is a ton to do. 

That said – leave Cape Town. We loved our time there, but South Africa is huge and there is so much to see and do in other areas of the country. In two weeks, we barely scratched the surface!

Load shedding is a way of life. Load shedding is a phrase used to explain the daily power outages for between 6-8 hours per day. It is happening all over South Africa due to complicated issues between the government and power company.

It might feel like meals are later. We noticed that lunches and dinners seemed to be much later than we were accustomed to in the States. Lunch was around 2PM and dinner around 8PM. 

South Africa loves sweets. Honestly, this was the most pleasant travel surprise I’ve come across in a long time. The very first place we stayed in South Africa gave us sour candies on our pillows at night and WHEWWW! THEY WERE SOUR! I was so pleased. I made it my mission to test out and find new candy almost everywhere we went and loved every second of it!

Try the spirits! We visited some beautiful wineries in Stellenbosch, but we found that even outside wine country, there were delicious wines to be sampled. South Africa also has some incredible distilleries (rose gin, specifically) that were so tasty. 

I hope this was helpful for anyone planning a trip to South Africa or getting ready to hop on the plane! Don’t worry – lots more content where this came from 😉