Johannesburg Highlights
From apartheid-era prisons and gold-rush landmarks to Soweto's streets of resistance, Johannesburg is a city where the story of modern South Africa is written in plain sight.
Trip Stops
- 1
A former fort and prison that held both Gandhi and Mandela, now home to South Africa's Constitutional Court. The court's doors are carved with the rights in the Bill of Rights, and its walls include bricks from the demolished prison block.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 2
A 284-metre cable-stayed bridge linking Braamfontein and Newtown across a railway yard. It was built over 42 railway lines without stopping a single train.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 3
Johannesburg's main history museum, housed in the city's 1913 fruit-and-vegetable market. Inside you can step into a reconstructed 1950s shebeen (an informal township bar), and entry is free.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 4
A once-derelict industrial district reborn as Johannesburg's creative quarter, its name meaning "Place of Light" in Sotho. Street art covers the old warehouses, and Arts on Main, home to artist William Kentridge's studio, is its cultural anchor.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 5
South Africa's definitive museum of apartheid, whose visitors are randomly assigned a "white" or "non-white" entrance ticket. It exists because the casino next door had to fund a social project as a condition of its licence.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 6
A theme park built around a real gold mine, where guided tours descend about 75 metres to a historic shaft and end with a gold pour. It sits on the Witwatersrand reef whose 1886 discovery led to the founding of Johannesburg.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 7
The site where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955 by over 3,000 delegates, and the foundation of today's constitution. It became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024, as one of the Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites.
📍 Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa
- 8
The largest Roman Catholic church in South Africa, nicknamed "the people's cathedral" for sheltering anti-apartheid gatherings. Its stained-glass windows were donated by Poland in 1998.
📍 Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa
- 9
Built near where 12-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot during the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Sam Nzima's photograph of him being carried away became one of the defining images of the anti-apartheid struggle.
📍 Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa
- 10
The only street in the world to have been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. It is named after poet Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, who in 1946 became the first Black South African to earn a PhD.
📍 Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa
- 11
Two brightly painted 33-storey cooling towers from a power station that closed in 1998. They are the site of the world's first bungee jump between two cooling towers.
📍 Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa
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Africa's largest stadium, holding 94,736 and shaped like a calabash pot. It hosted the 2010 World Cup final and Mandela's first Johannesburg speech after his release from prison.
📍 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- 13
The secret headquarters of the ANC and its armed wing in the early 1960s, raided by police on 11 July 1963, leading to the Rivonia Trial. Mandela lived here for a time, posing as a caretaker under the alias David Motsamayi.
📍 Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa
- 14
A UNESCO World Heritage Site about 50 km northwest of the city, rich in early hominid fossils. The nearby Sterkfontein Caves yielded "Mrs Ples", a 2.3-million-year-old skull found in 1947, and "Little Foot", a nearly complete skeleton over 3 million years old.
📍 Mogale City, Gauteng, South Africa
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