What should I avoid in Cape Town?

Camps Bay looks like it belongs on a screensaver. The restaurants along Victoria Road know this, and they charge for the view — expect R300-plus for a seafood platter that tastes competent, not special, served with the salt breeze and a sunset you'd get free from the beach wall ten metres away. The food isn't terrible. It's just not three-hundred-rand good. Drive twenty minutes south to Kalk Bay instead and eat at Kalky's, a takeaway window right on the harbour where the hake was probably swimming that morning. Fat, crispy chips, vinegar-soaked newspaper wrapping, seagulls screaming overhead, and you'll spend R90. The V&A Waterfront pulls the same trick at scale — a shopping mall dressed up as a working harbour, where Quay Four charges R280 for a burger you'll get better at Royale Eatery on Long Street for R145. Visit the Waterfront for Zeitz MOCAA. Eat somewhere else.

Every hotel concierge in Cape Town will try to sell you a Big 5 safari day trip to Aquila Private Game Reserve. It's a 2.5-hour drive each way through flat, scrubby Karoo — five hours in a minibus for ninety minutes of game drive on a relatively small reserve where the animals have seen more Land Cruisers than you've seen traffic lights. If safari matters to you, fly to Kruger or Madikwe for two nights. Different experience entirely. Table Mountain has its own trap: showing up without a pre-booked cableway ticket. The queue at the lower station can run ninety minutes on a clear summer morning, baking on hot concrete with no shade. Book online the night before. And check the wind forecast — the southeaster shuts the cableway down without much notice, and you'll have driven out to Tafelberg Road for nothing.

Cape Town's crime is real, and pretending otherwise does visitors no favours. The practical rules: never leave anything visible in a parked car — not a phone charger cable, not a shopping bag, nothing. Smash-and-grabs at traffic lights happen in broad daylight, and they happen fast. Keep windows up and doors locked when driving through Woodstock and the N2 stretch near Nyanga. Don't walk Long Street alone past midnight; it gets rough after the bars close, and the side streets off it — Pepper Street, Orphan Street — are poorly lit and worth avoiding entirely after dark. Metrorail trains are cheap but currently unreliable and not safe for tourists outside peak commuter hours on the Simon's Town line. Use Uber instead — it works across the city and a ride from the City Bowl to Camps Bay runs about R80. MyCiTi buses are the one reliable public transit option; the airport route is the best of them.

The Atlantic side of Cape Town — Clifton, Camps Bay, Llandudno — has water cold enough to make your chest seize. We're talking 10–14°C year-round, fed by the Benguela Current. It looks tropical. It is not. If you want to swim properly, head to the False Bay side: Muizenberg and Fish Hoek run warmer, typically 18–22°C in summer, and Muizenberg has gentle waves good for learning to surf. Mind you, the southeaster wind — locals call it the Cape Doctor — blows hard from November through March. It'll sandblast you on Camps Bay beach and turn a Clifton afternoon into a gritty, eyes-watering ordeal. On those days, head to Llandudno, which sits in a wind shadow, or skip the beach and drive the peninsula. The wind tends to die by late afternoon.

Self-appointed parking attendants are everywhere — at shopping centres, outside restaurants, along the Sea Point Promenade. Some wear high-vis vests that look official. Most are informal, and the dynamic is simple: they watch your car and expect R5–10 when you return. Paying the small amount is the local norm and keeps things smooth. The scam version is someone claiming your parking meter expired and offering to sort it for R50 — just check the meter yourself. At ATMs, use machines inside bank branches, not street-facing ones. Shoulder-surfing and card-skimming happen at standalone ATMs near Long Street and the Waterfront. Cover the keypad. Use tap-to-pay where you can — most Cape Town restaurants and shops accept it now.