Cape Town Hop-On Hop-Off Buses

Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa and a favorite destination for hundreds of tourists every year. Being a peninsula, this city is home to countless natural beauties, with samples of flora and fauna in each of its corners. Visiting this city means being exposed to nature and urban life, but also to the wildlife and marine life existing in these latitudes.

If you plan to visit Cape Town for a few days or, on the contrary, you plan to stay longer, an ideal way to tour the city is through a tourist bus. This means of transportation visits the most important destinations in each cardinal point of the metropolis. This, with the possibility of adapting the tour to your liking, recorded audio in Spanish and urban and natural panoramic views of great beauty. Therefore, this tour option is one of the best things to do in Cape Town.

The City Sightseeing Cape Town sightseeing bus is one of the most convenient ways to tour the capital of South Africa. In this type of vehicle, you can tour the main sights of the city, covering a total of 30 free stops, distributed in three major routes. The best part is that you can hop on and off the bus at your own convenience and get to know Cape Town at your own pace.

This bus, operated by City Sightseeing Tour Company, is a tour designed for the whole family and includes stops at places such as World of Birds, Camps Bay Beach , the Clock Tower, Table Mountain, Zeitz MOCAA Museum and much more. In addition, the experience includes audio commentary on the various places you visit.

With a wide range of offerings to suit every tourist's needs, you can choose a 24 or 48-hour pass, so you have plenty of time to take advantage of the tour. You can also choose between the Constantia Valley Wine Route, the Red City Route and the Mini Blue Peninsula Route. You may find it difficult to decide on one option, as each has its own charm. However, my goal is to help you choose the best tour for you.

If you opt for the Cape Town sightseeing bus, you will have three routes to guide your tour, depending on the time you have available, as well as your preferences. In any of the cases, do not forget that you can get off or on the bus at any of its 30 stops, so you can explore freely. In addition, you should know that some routes are linked to each other, as we will see below.

City Route or Red Route

As its name suggests, this route runs through the most emblematic points within the city and is an almost mandatory tour for all tourists staying at least 3 days in Cape Town or more, as you will pass through these places to go from one point to another, even if you only do activities outside the city. The route is made up of 11 stops, including the following places of interest:

• Stop 1 (Seaport), is the starting point of this route and the blue route. A space with wonderful views of the surroundings where those who are going to take part in a boat tour also gather.
• Stop 2 (Clock Tower), an emblematic tower that is part of the history of the city, with a well-known shopping center that bears the same name.
• Stop 5 (81 Long Street), one of the most important shopping streets in the city, full of cafes, bars and restaurants.
• Stop 7 (Table Mountain Cable Car), the cable car from where you can see breathtaking ocean and city scenery from a rotating cabin.
• Stop 8 (Camps Bay), the popular bay that receives hundreds of tourists thanks to the beauty of its beaches.
• Stop 11 (Saint Johns Road), a street with great historical value that nowadays offers commercial activity and tourist attractions such as the church of Saint John, museums, markets, etc.
• Stop 12 (Green Point), a large urban park for various activities such as picnics, exercise, appreciating the view of the surroundings and learning about biodiversity.

Mini Peninsula or Blue Route

The Mini Peninsula or Blue Route is composed of approximately 14 stops, some of which are shared with the Red Route. The focus of this route is to get to know a variety of natural spaces, parks and buildings of great historical or artistic value. Thus, among the important stops on this route are:

• Stop 15 (Mount Nelson Hotel), a hotel that stands out for the beauty of its architecture, romantic style and has hosted great characters of Western history such as the Prince of Wales and writers HG Wells and Agatha Christie.
• Stop 20 (Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden), a natural lung founded in 1913 that showcases the diversity of Cape Town's flora. Picnics are also possible here.
• Stop 22 (World of Birds Wildlife Sanctuary & Monkey Park), a type of zoo where you will see hundreds of species of birds and have interactive experiences with monkeys and other mammals.
• Stop 23 (Imizamo Yethu), a community made up of some of South Africa's native ethnic groups, classified as an informal settlement, offering street art, local food, guided tours and more, to show the world their history and culture.
• Stop 24 (Mariner's Wharf Harbour Front Emporium), a kind of harbor with several restaurants to taste the products of the region. It also offers boat trips for seal watching. It operates from Friday to Sunday.

Constantia Valley Wine Route or Purple Route

This route is another favorite of tourists and focuses on the Constantia Valley, about 15 km south of Cape Town. Here you will see old and prestigious wineries of South Africa. The tour, ideal to complete during your stay of at least 7 days in Cape Town, is composed of 4 stops, which are as follows:

• Stop 21 (Constantia Nek), the starting point of this route, a space with several restaurants and bars where you could have a coffee and snacks, or start the wine tasting.
• Stop 25 (Groot Constantia), the most traditional wine estate in the African country where you can see the wine production process and taste several award-winning vintages.
• Stop 26 (Eagle's Nest), another important winery in the region that offers a tasting of Merlot, Viognier and Shiraz wines.
• Stop 27 (Beau Constantia), a restaurant where you can do a wine tasting and, at the same time, taste delicious dishes while enjoying the view.

The advantages of using the Cape Town Red Bus Tour are varied. You will find benefits from the economic point of view, since you will be able to integrate the visit to several destinations in the same means of transport.

On the other hand, you will have the opportunity to make the visits in a personalized way, since you can get off or on at a stop whenever you prefer. Likewise, you will be able to make the best use of your time, since you can organize your itinerary of about 5 days in Cape Town or less, in order to visit as many places as possible during one or two days.

If you will be staying several days in the city, then you can take advantage of this tour to combine it with a visit to other places, for example, a much more complete wine tour, a boat tour to see marine animals, or a hiking tour of Table Mountain, among other of the best tours in Cape Town.

The full length of the Cape Town sightseeing day bus tour is relative, as it will depend on how you navigate each route. If you go through a complete route, the ride time will be different than if you combine several of them. In addition, there is the fact that, if you purchase a two-day ticket, you will have 48 hours as a window to visit the sites.

In any case, you should know that the total duration of the three routes is estimated at 4 hours and this time may vary due to external conditions such as weather, traffic or other events.

Specifically, we have that the longest route is the Mini Blue Peninsula, with a total of approximately 2 hours of travel time. This time can be extended if you purchase tickets for World of Birds Wildlife Sanctuary, for example. If you decide to go for the red city route , then the scheduled time is more or less 1 hour, while if you opt for the wine route, the minimum time would be 30 minutes. Thus, the times will vary according to your own interests.

The list of what you will see on the Cape Town sightseeing bus is endless, because you can tailor the tour according to your preferences and available travel time. Also, if you choose the 1-day option, your experience will be different from the 2-day one, since in the latter case the destinations to visit increase, as well as the duration of the experiences in each destination.

In any of the cases, you should know that with the tourist bus you have the opportunity to know basically all the essential places of Cape Town, since you will visit the urban environment with its historical buildings, museums, peculiar neighborhoods such as the Boo-Kap, stores, restaurants and other places to experience the local culture.

You will also visit all the important natural destinations such as the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, the World of Birds Park , Mariner's Wharf Harbour and Green Point. On the Cape Town sightseeing bus you have the opportunity to tour the city from all sides.

You will also pass through Camps Bay and enjoy all it has to offer. You will get unique panoramic views of the ocean and its mixture with the mountains, see white sandy beaches and endless blue waters.

You will also see the mountain trails where grapes are grown for wine production and visit the most important estates in the region such as Groot Constantia, Eagle's Nest and Beau Constantia. In short, the touristic bus tour leaves almost none of the must-see destinations out. You may even have time left over for a safari adventure in Cape Town.

The value of the Cape Town sightseeing bus for the day will depend on the type of ticket you choose, as there are two options. If you decide to do the tour in 1 day, the ticket usually costs 16 € per person, while if you want to complete the tour in 2 days, then you will have to pay about 22 €.

In case you travel with children to Cape Town, the values of the bus change to 10 € for the 1 day tour and 15 € for the 2 day tour. Best of all, if you make a simulation of your reservation, you will see that these values are maintained during almost every month of the year, which is very positive when planning your trip.

The schedules of the tourist bus vary depending on the route. Thus, the red route starts operating at 8:40 am and culminates at 4:45 pm. The blue mini peninsula route starts its service at 9:00 am and runs until 3:25 pm, while the purple route is active from 9:55 am until 4:25 pm.

As for the frequency with which the bus runs, there are also some differences between the routes. If you intend to join the blue route the departure interval is every 35 minutes and, for the red and purple routes, the frequency is 20 minutes. In any of the cases you must keep in mind that both the schedules and the respective frequencies in which the bus passes may suffer changes due to the season of the year or adverse conditions such as weather or traffic.

Regardless of the type of experience you choose, the recommendation is to board the bus early in the day, so that you can complete the routes you want and still have some time available to join other activities at the end of the day, such as a sunset cruise, a jazz tour or other things to do in Cape Town at night.

The way the Cape Town sightseeing bus works is quite simple. The first thing you need to do is to decide whether you want the 1-day or 2-day ticket and, of course, if you go on this tour in advance, to know the exact date you will be taking the tour.

To purchase or reserve your ticket online, once you choose the provider of this service, you must indicate the number of passengers, the date and the type of ticket you intend to purchase.

Next, you will have to check the availability of the tour and, if everything is OK, you will have to fill out a form with your name and surname, the language in which you want to listen to the audio guide, your contact information and if you have any special request related to accessibility, food, etc. Finally, add your credit card information and complete the purchase. You will receive your ticket by e-mail.

If you wish to make this purchase in person, you must go to the office of the company that provides the tourist bus service, City Sightseeing Tour, located at 81 Long Street. Once you make the purchase, you will receive your physical ticket, which will be necessary to board the bus.