Blog - Cape Town Holiday Accommodation - Places to Stay in South Africa

1. Sundowners at La Med
For a totally chilled out summer cocktails by the sea experience head down to La Med in Camps Bay. It’s where pretty much anybody who’s cool in Cape Town hangs out every now and again and you’re never short of some fantastic eye candy. The odd impromptu parachute landing by locals throwing themselves off Lions Head only add to the cool factor of this Cape Town Sundowner institution.

2. Curry at Bukhara
There’s nothing quite like a curry and a few beers after a game. Head down to Church Street in Cape Town’s City Bowl to experience one of the best in Cape Town. Get a table on the Verandah and enjoy the hustle and bustle of Cape Town below but be warned it gets packed to the rafters every night so you’ll need to book in advance.

3. Shopping at the Waterfront
The Waterfront with it’s iconic picture postcard views has become the central tourist location in Cape Town. Only a few minutes from the Stadium at Greenpoint you can shop until you drop, take a trip on a Catamaran or even book a helicopter flip over the Peninsula.

4. Surfing at Muizenberg
When in Cape Town do as the Capetonians do. Muizenberg is the home of learning to surf in the Cape and in October 2009 grabbed the world record for number of surfers riding the same wave, a staggering 103. There’s plenty of surf schools just off the beach and for a few quid you can grab a board, wetsuit and an instructor for an hour.

5. Shark cage diving
You won’t get many locals promoting shark diving because of the alleged increased shark activity in the area due to companies artificially chumming the ocean so you get a glimpse of the 20 ft killers. However, if you fancy an up close and personal experience with a great white then here’s your chance.

6. Laze on the beach
The water in Cape Town is icy cold all year round and the swell is dangerous for all but the most experienced swimmers. The best way to enjoy the beach is from the comfort of your sunbed. Clifton’s 4 beaches are without doubt the busiest and coolest in Cape Town.

7. Hiking in Silvermine
Unknown to many Capetonians, Silvermine forms part of the Cape Peninsula National Park and has some of the best walks in Cape Town. Choose a trail of between 1 and 4 hours and you’ll get to see some of the most stunning scenery in the world.

8. The Old Biscuit Mill
An organic market in the same vein as Spittalfields in London. Lots of freshly made natural eats and treats as well as some pretty cool stuff to buy. It’s only a short drive from the Greenpoint Stadium in the up and coming area of Woodstock. If you want a taste of multi-culteral Cape Town then it’s well worth a visit.

9. Winelands tour
No trip to Cape Town is complete without a tour of the wine route. Crawl from wine farm to wine farm tasting their wares. Having done this several times myself the first two wine farms are fantastic … and you really savour the delicate differences between wine growers. After that it all becomes a blur.

10. Moyo for supper
Speir wine farm is one of the biggest in the Cape and also home to Moyo restaurant. Reserve a tree-top table and enjoy a truly African evening of fantastic food and great impromptu singing, drumming and dancing from the resident musicians. World Cup 2010 - 10 Things to do and see in Cape Town (between matches of course

There’s some confusion surrounding the ticket allocation and collection for the forthcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa. There are two types of tickets. Individual match tickets for each of the 64 games and Team Specific Match Tickets (TSTs) which are a series of tickets to follow your national team and may include between 3 and 7 tickets. (Code TST5 = 5 games etc). If your team gets knocked out your TST ticket remains valid to follow the team that progresses into the next round of the competition.

You can only collect your tickets from the designated Ticket Collection Points in each of the 9 host cities in South Africa. You must be the person who applied for the tickets and must present the credit card used to pay for the tickets. You will also need another from of ID such as your passport. Tickets will not be delivered to your home address.

Tickets are still available for the tournament and yesterday Fifa announced another PMA (participating member association) phase of sales which will take place through the Fifa.com website from 9 Feb - 7 April, 2010. This will coincide with the 4th planned sales phase whereby match tickets will be available on Fifa.com and at branches of FNB Bank (in South Africa) on a first come first served basis.

Sales of World Cup tickets in the host country have so far been met with apathy. More tickets have been sold to watch England’s games than Bafana Bafana, the South African national team. This is no great surprise in a country where Man Utd and Liverpool are the two biggest supported teams. Having lived in South Africa for some time I wouldn’t be overly concerned by the lack of enthusiasm thus far. South Africans are notoriously laid back about committing to any event until the day before it’s due to take place. For more information about tickets for the World Cup visit Fifa.com.

Yes, but the prices vary wildly depending on when you travel. If you decide to stay until after the final on July 11th then you can fly home on the 13th for £2,698 or stay an extra couple of days in the Mother City and return on the 15th for only £472 with British Airways, a colossal saving of almost £2,200.

This pattern of volatile prices continues across the board and with most airlines. Emirates, however, are very consistent with return prices around the £2,800 mark … ouch! If money is not an issue and you’re looking for a direct flight then try either BA or Virgin. If money is an issue and you don’t mind traveling 15 - 20 hours then focus on SAA and other European airlines. From our research KLM is a good choice, lots of availability and fairly consistent prices of between £1,000 and £1,600 for a return flight during the World Cup. South African Airways is also a great option and with a travel time of only 15 hours (1 stop in Johannesburg) it’s possibly the best choice at the moment.

In general, aggregate sites are a great way to search. Try opodo.com or travelsupermarket.com. Once you’ve found an airline and roughly know your travel dates try searching cash back sites such as quidco.com. You can often shave up to 5% off the price of your flight by clicking through from one of these sites.

Our advice for travelers is to book early. Don’t hang around for a last minute bargain because chances are there won’t be any. As a regular traveler to South Africa myself, the closer to your departure you get the more expensive and less choice there is.

I’ve been asked a few times about the best places to stay in Cape Town for the World Cup 2010 so I thought I’d share my local knowledge to help ‘newbie’ visitors find the perfect place. I’ll base this on 3 factors: Cost of accommodation, Proximity to the World Cup stadium and Style (is it a cool place with good restaurants, bars and nightlife). The World Cup stadium itself is in Greenpoint which is very central to everything cool and stylish that Cape Town has to offer. There will also be fan parks in Bellville (Northern Suburbs), Athlone (Southern Suburbs) and in front of City Hall (City Bowl). Read more

Here’s a few facts and figures from Fifa.com regarding the first phase of ticket sales for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

• 1,862,319 tickets requested from 205 countries
• 555,871 tickets allocated to lucky winners in first ballot phase
• 245,948 tickets allocated to South African citizens (44%)
• Other top countries allocated were: USA 69,208, UK 39,421, Germany 29,330
• Most popular team was England with 228,822 team-follow requests (ie tickets for all England games) with only 8,895 tickets available.
• Most popular match category was 4.
• Most over-subscribed match was the final by a factor of 3,000%
• Number of oversubscribed matches was 52

For those lucky enough to receive tickets in the first phase they will be notified by the end of this month (April). They originally said 3 days but I guess even their mailing system is struggling with demand. Would be good to hear from anybody who has received tickets already, I’m still waiting for mine!

Following a news report on the BBC last night about crime in Cape Town, particularly focussing on gangsters and the underworld of drugs in Grassy Park I thought we’d share some safety advice for overseas travelers to our lovely City of Cape Town. Read more

Tickets from the first phase ballot will be drawn from the FIFA hat today. All successful applicants will recieve notification within 3 working days by email. If you’re not one of the lucky people this time you can always apply in the second phase of ticketing starting on May 4th, 2009. However, unlike the first phase, the second phase will be on a first come first served basis so you’d better have quick fingers and your credit card at the ready on the stroke of midnight to stand a chance of getting the tickets you’re after. There’s also a 3rd, 4th and 5th phase of ticket sales with the latter being conducted at the point of sale. This will only happen with any remaining seat still unsold after the first 4 phases so more than likely it’ll be the expensive tickets for the ‘not so great’ games!. You can read more on the Fifa.com website. AND remember to add your property to onelocation if you haven’t already. There’s a few more free places left and in about 3 days thousands of lucky ticket winners will start scouring South Africa for World Cup Accommodation.

The site has ONLY been live for a week and already holiday home owners will reap the rewards of advertising their holiday rental accommodation on the site. After only a few days we’ve reached No.1 on Google for the search term Cape Town World Cup Accommodation. Now bearing in mind the allocation of first phase tickets for the 2010 World Cup will be happening in the next couple of weeks this is fantastic news for all those holiday home owners already on the site. At the moment advertising your property is completely free so there’s really no time to waste. And remember we’re only giving away a few subscriptions to some early adopters so go go go before they’re all snapped up.

Tickets for the 2010 World Cup will soon be allocated to those lucky soccer fans whose name has been picked from the hat. More than 1.6 million ticket applications have been received by fifa since the first ballot phase opened in February. With 30% of applications from South Africa and 70% from overseas there’ll be some mad scrambling for accommodation from around the middle of April when the first allocation is announced. So with this in mind, ask yourself a question. Is your accommodation World Cup ready? If not then don’t panic … here’s what you need to do. Read more