What To Do in South Johannesburg

Last stop, South Johannesburg!

The flight from Cape Town to “Jozi” was about an hour and a half. Not too bad when you have 30+ of your friends being loud and taking over the plane. Honestly, I slept. Those that really know me, know that I will SLEEP through anything and the amount of traveling we had been doing, left me no choice, but to 💤. We spent 4 days in Jozi and it was action packed.

Here are a few reasons a trip to South Africa will be nothing short of spectacular:

We learned about the history of Apartheid at the Apartheid Museum and then headed to Soweto to explore Hector Pieterson Museum and Nelson Mandela Museum (home) for a tour. I know we were taught about Apartheid in school, but we had never heard of Hector until we went to this museum. The confusion on everyone’s face was self-explanatory. How come his story wasn’t taught to us? Our journey to Soweto led us to Sakhumzi Restaurant which is across from Nelson Mandela’s home. This restaurant has several types of food. It is buffet styled and is in a tourist area. Hallmark House is a hotel, near Mobeneng Precint. They have a restaurant/lounge at the top of the hotel. We had our last dinner there and the food was amazing. I ordered the “Sunset Kiss” drink and they had a prefixed dinner set up for us. I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to go. Mobeneng isn’t the ideal area to walk in. Just be careful. We drove to Dinokeng Game Reserve and enjoyed a day of viewing Africa’s lions, leopards, rhinos, tigers and buffalos.  You will also experience hundreds of other mammals who make their home in the Game Reserve such as giraffes, zebras, and springbok. Everyday People came to J’burg to kick start the warm-up to Afropunk festival at the Good Luck Bar. DJs on the lineup included  Akio, Fif_Laaa, Soulkid, DJ Remy (Swe) and DJ AQ were there. As an avid Everyday People party goer, I must say their party in Johannesburg was probably the best one I have been to. I usually try to go to the Brooklyn events, but this one had a different vibe. It felt like we were in Brooklyn all over again. The amount of diversity we saw was pretty dope and they played a wide range of music.

To top off our last day in the “Motherland”, we had a “yellow” photoshoot at our hotel, Maslow Hotel. My best friend, Colleen came up with the idea to have this photo shoot. She was very much inpsired by other travel groups and #BlackGirlMagic.

This was a celebration of bringing in the New Year and celebrating life. Traveling to Africa was an amazing experience. I cannot wait to go back and visit other countries!

To read more about our Afropunk experience in South Johanesburg, check out my next blog!

Hector Pieterson

This museum located in Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa, two blocks away from where Hector Pieterson was shot and killed June 16, 1976. He was a South African schoolboy who was shot and killed during the Soweto uprising, when the police opened fire on students protesting the enforcement of teaching in Afrikaans.

Nelson Mandela’s Home

The Nelson Mandela National Museum, commonly referred to as Mandela House, is the house on Vilakazi Street, Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela lived from 1946 to 1962.

Apartheid Museum

The Segregation exhibit provides background on the official policy of segregation that became a feature of the union of South Africa, which was formed in 1910. Blacks and white women were not allowed to vote under this policy. Segregation laid the way for apartheid.