7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Traveling to Cape Town in 2026

In this video I'm sharing seven things I wish I knew before coming here to Cape Town South Africa so you're not gonna make the same mistakes I did. Whether it's safety, where to stay or things that can completely ruin your experience if you get them wrong. And the first thing is where to stay. I wish I knew this area close to Clifton here in Seapoint with this Saunders rock pool. It's amazing. So yeah I did get it right that Seapoint is the best area to stay definitely for longer stay because there's everything here you need walking distance so it's amazing but we're in the complete opposite side of Seapoint over there so it's not really optimal like I would say this area close to Saunders rock beach it's perfect because you walk in distance to Clifton beach which is insane beach so that would be amazing and also I feel like this area is just the best vibe and feels maybe a little bit safer than the other side of Seapoint closer to Greenpoint so I definitely wish we stayed somewhere here I don't know if the accommodation options would be the same price as on the other side but like this would be definitely better. Especially with this natural swimming pool it's like ice bath it's so cold but it's amazing like I can imagine the lifestyle here like going every morning like a quick dip like ice bath in this pool enjoying the life here going like walking around the nice restaurants and then every other day go to nice beach to Clifton for sunset or during the day just enjoying so oh that would be amazing and the next thing is going to be the weather I was very surprised even the hottest month now in January is still quite cold like it's very windy most of the days and not super warm so yeah I'm kind of like freezing sometimes I had to buy a beanie and wear a lot of warm clothes so I wish I knew to take more warm clothes because I definitely need them here but luckily we have some nice saunas here so you can warming up look at this view it's really nice to the ocean from the sauna we actually didn't know what they have this kind of like really nice sauna place here it was like impossible to find no google maps but then we heard from local and of course there's some ice baths looks amazing it's so beautiful not that you necessarily need ice baths here the ocean is so cold anyway but yeah the weather I would say like I wouldn't really enjoy actually staying here outside of the high season when the hot months are like summer for them but I would say if you're from like UK or something you're used to cold weathers it's probably still warm most of the year here but it's just me used to Bali but yeah the next thing is safety I was actually quite surprised I was told in Seapoint it's like super safe so I thought it's gonna be like nothing weird going on but we run into quite many situations with like homeless people a little bit erratic even aggressive sometimes the locals told us that they're using like a lot of substances like sometimes just going crazy I just often feel a little bit anxious when I'm walking to gym for example when you some of the roads the people there it's a bit weird vibe so yet for this reason even if before I was thinking that I would actually maybe enjoy staying here for like three months every year because this seems like such a like healthy nice place there's so much to do the nature is amazing but I don't know if I would feel comfortable like I don't like feeling anxious every time I go somewhere and also the rules of like you shouldn't walk outside when it's dark it's kind of it's not really a nice vibe especially if you want to live here longer like have it as a home well to be honest coming from France you're growing up learning to be like a little bit careful especially if you're living in a big city such as Lyon Paris you know I'd say like it's like really sketchy when it's getting dark like the other day I was walking and in like a narrow street one naked guy was like I don't know crawling in the middle of the street I was like okay that's really weird so obviously my only advice would be like just take ubers to go home when it's dark but during the day it's like okay just be careful oh my gosh yeah the other day I went to um what's this place called again uh Nendo's like homeless guy was kind of mad and he went out he took some rocks and he started to like throw rocks at the restaurant so obviously I ran away from this uh sketchy situation but yeah this could happen in Cape Town so yeah be careful yeah I guess generally it's okay during the day most of the time but there's also some situations even in Sea Point which is like good area and one thing in Cape Town is that you really don't need cash like even in these kind of places or like markets or anywhere you can always use Apple Pay or card like you just I never use cash like even on the beach when you pay for the like shade you can pay it with card or Apple Pay and the next few things you should know is here at home if you're staying in Cape Town and one is AC situation so we don't have them in our bedrooms which we thought is okay because people say it's not too hot but the problem is that it's a bit hot and when you open the windows it's really windy then it will be like shaking and make a lot of noise so it's not really possible and then it's super hot inside the bedrooms and the noise that are not too windy when you can actually keep them open there's like incredible amount of like loud cars which is not really like a nice feeling to sleep even with airpods sometimes like what's going on outside so loud and also yeah with like all the birds and the noises from the nature and ocean and everything it's not super like I haven't slept very well here so I would definitely recommend choosing a place that has AC if you don't like to sleep in very warm temperatures at least for me like I just can't sleep well but what's actually good news is that there's no load shedding so the electricity doesn't go out like the whole month ever so that's amazing but we have had some issues with the Wi-Fi like it's very fast actually I mean like decently fast but it just like it's very unstable it goes out all the time like when you try working sometimes just loading like a like normal website it takes forever like sometimes it's just out suddenly then it's in again like it's been a bit tough to work with the Wi-Fi and what I hear from other people also is just like a Cape Town or like South Africa thing that the Wi-Fi is just not the best here but the solution that I found to this problem that works actually pretty perfectly is using my mobile data from Olafly the sponsor of this video also because it's unlimited data with hotspot capabilities I've been just like hotspotting to my computer like pretty much non-stop like every day so I've been using like incredible amount of mobile data but it's with the same price so actually it doesn't cost any more I have been using that for working even like downloading files or like sending files like it works way faster actually than the Wi-Fi and it's more stable so if you have that problem solved then generally I would recommend getting an eSIM it's just so much easier than having physical SIM cards you don't need to hunt for SIM card kiosk in the airport or dealing with top-ups you just set it up before your flight and the moment you land boom you have mobile data working which makes everything super convenient and what I personally have used for multiple months now which is a total game changer is Olafly plans it's basically one eSIM that works in 160 destinations with monthly global data plans and even your own local number either from US, UK or Canada that you can use for verifications and banking so check out Olafly from the link in the description and grab an eSIM before your trip and with my code JOSETHENOMAD you will get 5% off regular eSIMs and 10% off Olafly plans for the first 12 months and next couple of things about the experiences here in Cape Town so yeah one thing is when you go to boulders beach to watch the penguins what I would recommend is to get your swimsuit on because they have a beach where you can swim with the penguins basically it's amazing like we really loved it but we didn't take swimsuit because we didn't realize that actually the water is not that cold there like in Cape Town beaches is insanely cold but in boulders it's actually it's still a little bit cold but it's way warmer so you can actually enjoy some swimming with the penguins which would be amazing we missed out on that so I would highly recommend doing that we're doing a quick wine tasting it's a nice vibe here this is definitely the best white wine that I've ever had really good really good some food before we go to our next stop the grapes are actually so good here it's straight from the bush I guess seeing the cheetahs here in the reserve because we didn't really realize it's really nice here but if you want to go to the real safari it's not actually in Cape Town didn't realize you need to plan it a little bit more properly because you need to fly to Johannesburg and stay there for one or two nights so we missed out on that so that's why we came here it's a nice experience but of course I wish we went to the proper safari but next time the scenery is so nice here though like with all the mountains super peaceful and then seeing the cheetahs also so yeah basically this place is like taking care of the cheetahs that are not able to be in the wild and also helping many cheetahs to get back to the wild well look at this sunset here pretty amazing but yeah I hope all this helped you to be better prepared if you're coming to Cape Town and avoid some mistakes that we did and yeah if you want to be part of my community part of these kind of meetups and we have many bigger ones and a lot more information you can learn from my experience and also of course our whatsapp group chat is very active so you can meet a lot of like-minded people I will leave link in the description if you want to be part of it hope you enjoyed the video please like the video and subscribe and see you next week