Johannesburg: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Johannesburg is a hundred and forty years old and exists for one reason: in 1886 a prospector found the outcrop of a gold reef on a farm here, and within a decade a tent camp on a treeless plateau at eighteen hundred metres was the largest city in southern Africa. Everything that followed — the migrant labour system, the townships, the pass laws, apartheid itself — was built to get men underground and keep them out of the city when they were not. This route is not a walk between the two museums; they are twelve kilometres apart and you take a car or a tour. Half a day, and it is heavy. Do the Apartheid Museum first.

A short history of Johannesburg

Johannesburg was founded in 1886, a few months after gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand ridge, and within ten years it became a huge mining camp and later the largest city in South Africa. At the end of the 19th century thousands of Jewish immigrants arrived, most of them from Lithuania, and the city's Jewish community is still the largest in the country. In the 20th century separate townships for Black people were built around it, among them Soweto, and on 16 June 1976 the student uprising against apartheid broke out there. Nelson Mandela opened a law office here in 1952. In 2010 the city hosted the World Cup final.

The ten best sights in Johannesburg

1
Apartheid Museum
R240 for foreign visitors; your ticket assigns you a race at the gate. Verified 10/2026
2
Constitution Hill
A prison that held Gandhi and Mandela, with the Constitutional Court built inside it
3
Hector Pieterson Museum
Two hundred metres from where he was shot on 16 June 1976
4
Mandela House
He lived here from 1946; the bullet holes in the wall are from the eighties
5
Vilakazi Street
The only street in the world that housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners
6
Regina Mundi Church
The largest Catholic church in South Africa; bullet holes in the ceiling
7
Walter Sisulu Square
Where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955, in Kliptown
8
Liliesleaf Farm
The ANC’s underground HQ; the 1963 raid here led to the Rivonia Trial
9
Origins Centre
At Wits; the world’s best collection of San rock art, and it explains it
10
Museum Africa
In the old fruit market at Newtown; free, and the Treason Trial room

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The two museums that explain the country

Apartheid Museum · Your ticket is printed at random as "white" or "non-white" and you enter through the corresponding gate, with a cage of actual pass books behind glass on the other side — that is the first thirty seconds and it sets the terms. The museum was built in 2001 as a condition of a casino licence, which is a strange origin for the best museum in the country. Two hundred and forty rand for foreign visitors. Verified 10/2026.
Constitution Hill · A fort and prison complex that held Gandhi in 1908 and Mandela in 1962, plus the Women’s Jail and Number Four, the notoriously brutal section for black men. In 1996 the new Constitutional Court was deliberately built inside it, partly out of bricks from the demolished awaiting-trial block, and the court sits in public — anyone can walk in and watch a hearing. That juxtaposition is the whole argument of the site.
Johannesburg Art Gallery · Edwin Lutyens designed it in 1915 — the architect of New Delhi — and it was built facing north, away from the park, because the city planned to move the railway and never did. So the grand entrance has faced a scrap of park used as a taxi turnaround for a century. The collection inside is genuinely significant, and the building has been fighting a leaking roof and a funding crisis for twenty years.
Museum Africa · In the old Newtown fruit market, free to enter, and the room that matters is the reconstruction of the 1956 Treason Trial — a hundred and fifty-six people charged at once, including Mandela, in a trial that ran for four and a half years and ended in acquittal for everyone. There is also a full reconstruction of a 1950s shack from Sophiatown, built from the actual materials.
Market Theatre · Opened in 1976 in the old Indian fruit market and known for twenty years as "the theatre of the struggle": it staged plays by Athol Fugard and others to racially mixed audiences, which was illegal, and it simply kept doing it. The actors were arrested, the plays were banned abroad and performed anyway, and the building is still a working theatre.
Carlton Centre · Two hundred and twenty-three metres and fifty storeys, finished in 1973, and it has been the tallest building in Africa for more than half a century — which says less about Johannesburg than about what happened to the city centre afterwards. In the nineties the corporations moved north to Sandton en masse, and the tower that was the symbol of the centre now has a half-empty office block under an observation deck.

Soweto

South Western Townships — the name is an administrative abbreviation and that tells you what it was: a place built to hold the labour the city needed and did not want living in it. Over a million people live here now, across the full range from shacks without services to large private houses on the same street. It is not a slum and it is not a theme park, and the only honest way to see it is with a guide who lives here. Half a day, by car or on a bicycle tour.

Hector Pieterson Museum · On the sixteenth of June 1976 schoolchildren marched against being taught in Afrikaans; the police opened fire and Hector Pieterson, aged twelve, was among the first killed. Sam Nzima’s photograph of a boy carrying his body, with Hector’s sister running alongside, went round the world within a day and changed how the outside world saw South Africa. The museum stands two hundred metres from where he was shot, and the spot is marked.
Mandela House · A four-room matchbox house on Vilakazi Street that Mandela moved into in 1946 and called the first place that was truly his own. He slept here for the last time in 1962 and returned after twenty-seven years in prison, stayed eleven days and left — he said the house no longer felt like home. The bullet holes and scorch marks on the outside wall are from police attacks in the eighties, while Winnie lived here.
Vilakazi Street · The only street in the world on which two Nobel Peace Prize laureates have lived: Mandela and Desmond Tutu, whose house is a few hundred metres up and is still a private family home. The street is now restaurants and stalls, which some people find uncomfortable and others point out is exactly what economic participation looks like. The argument itself is worth hearing from your guide.
Regina Mundi Church · The largest Catholic church in South Africa, seating about two thousand, and during the apartheid years political meetings that were banned everywhere else were held in it under the cover of a service. Police fired into the building more than once; there are bullet holes in the ceiling and a damaged marble altar, both left deliberately unrepaired. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later held hearings here.
Walter Sisulu Square · On the twenty-sixth of June 1955 about three thousand delegates met on this open ground in Kliptown and adopted the Freedom Charter, which opens with the line that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. Police broke up the second day of the meeting and took the names of everyone present; those names became the charge sheet of the Treason Trial a year later.
Orlando Towers · Two cooling towers of a coal power station that ran from 1951 to 1998 — it stood in Soweto, it burned coal over Soweto, and it supplied electricity to white Johannesburg while most of the township around it was not connected. They are now painted top to bottom with murals and you can bungee jump between them, which is a very South African way of dealing with a monument.

The city that came back

In the nineteen-nineties the companies left the centre for Sandton almost overnight, the buildings were occupied, and for twenty years the inner city was a place people drove around rather than into. What has happened since is uneven and real: a few precincts have been rebuilt by small developers and artists, and on a Sunday morning they are among the best places in the country. Midweek and after dark is a different matter, and that caveat is not decoration. Two hours, Sunday morning, with a guide or on a walking tour.

Arts on Main · A warehouse block bought in 2009 by a developer who was twenty-seven and had no money, and turned into studios with a Sunday market on the ground floor. William Kentridge, probably the most internationally significant artist South Africa has produced, has his studio in this building. The whole Maboneng precinct grew out of this one block.
Maboneng · The name means place of light in Sotho. For about a decade it was the showpiece of inner-city regeneration, and then the original developer’s company collapsed in 2017 and parts of it emptied out again. What is left is genuine and smaller than the photographs suggest: a few streets of galleries, cafés and murals, excellent on a Sunday and quiet enough midweek that you should not wander.
Victoria Yards · Old industrial sheds in Lorentzville turned into artists’ workshops, with vegetable gardens between the buildings worked by people from the surrounding streets — the model is explicitly that the neighbours have to benefit or the project does not survive. The open day is the first Sunday of the month, and that is the day to come.
Ponte City · Fifty-four storeys built in 1975 as luxury flats, hollow in the middle like a chimney, and the tallest residential building in Africa. In the nineties it emptied, gangs moved in and the core filled with five storeys of rubbish thrown down the shaft. It was cleaned out and is now ordinary rented flats, fully occupied. You can only go in on an organised tour, and that is the correct rule here.
Braamfontein · The student quarter next to Wits University, and the rooftop Neighbourgoods Market on a Saturday is where the young middle class of the city actually is — an entirely post-apartheid crowd, mixed in a way their parents’ generation was not. The 2015 Fees Must Fall protests began at the university on this street.
Mai Mai Market · A market of traditional healers, herbalists and Zulu craftsmen that has operated on this site since the nineteen-thirties — originally a hostel compound for migrant mine workers from Natal. The shops sell bark, roots and animal parts for muti, and shields and beadwork made on the spot. Ask before taking any photograph: for many of the healers here it is a serious objection, not a preference.

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Getting to Johannesburg and getting around

OR Tambo Airport · The busiest airport in Africa; the Gautrain reaches Sandton in 15 minutes
Lanseria Airport · The small northern airport; closer to Sandton and far quicker to clear
Park Station · The Gautrain and the long-distance trains; the city centre terminus
Sandton Gautrain · Where most visitors actually base themselves; airport in 15 minutes
Bree Taxi Rank · The largest minibus taxi rank in Africa; the city’s real transport

Cheap eats in Johannesburg

Johannesburg eats meat over fire and starch beside it, and the places that matter are not restaurants: a shisanyama is a butchery with a grill at the back where you buy the meat raw by the kilo and they cook it, and a kota is a quarter loaf of bread hollowed out and filled. Twenty to a hundred and fifty rand. Cash and a card both work; almost nobody here is cash-only any more.

Shisanyama in Soweto · Weekend afternoons; buy the meat raw by weight
Kota · 25 to 50 rand; from a container shop
Bunny chow · In Fordsburg, not on a plate
Fordsburg night square · Every evening, late; busiest in Ramadan
Neighbourgoods Market · Saturday only, from nine to three
Biltong and droëwors · Sold by weight everywhere; ask for it sliced
Portuguese food · Troyeville; the chicken and the prawns
Rosebank Sunday Market · Sunday; the African food stalls

Museums in Johannesburg

Almost every museum in this city is about the same two subjects: gold, and what was built to extract it. The exception is the Origins Centre, which goes back a hundred thousand years instead of a hundred and forty. Most places take a card; the Apartheid Museum is two hundred and forty rand for foreign visitors as of May 2026. Verified 10/2026.

Apartheid Museum · R240 for foreign visitors. Verified 10/2026
Constitution Hill · A guided tour is included in the ticket
Origins Centre · At Wits; the rock art is the reason
Liliesleaf Farm · In Rivonia; check it is open before you go
Museum Africa · Free; the Treason Trial room
Johannesburg Art Gallery · Check it is open before you go
Sterkfontein Caves · R150, 38 kilometres out. Verified 10/2026
Maropeng · R150; combine with Sterkfontein. Verified 10/2026

Nature and day trips near Johannesburg

Johannesburg sits at about eighteen hundred metres on a ridge with no river, no lake and no coast — there is no natural reason for a city here at all, and the ten million trees that make it the largest urban forest on earth were every one of them planted, originally to provide pit props for the mines. Summer afternoons bring violent thunderstorms; winter is dry, cold at night and sunny.

The urban forest · October is the jacaranda month
Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden · Free parking; bring binoculars for the cliff
Klipriviersberg · Free; go in a group, weekend mornings
Zoo Lake · Free; the Sunday art market
Emmarentia · Free; busy on Saturday mornings
Lion and Safari Park · Stay in the car with windows up; it is enforced
Hartbeespoort Dam · 57 kilometres out; the view, not the water
Pretoria jacarandas · Late October, for about three weeks

Holy places in Johannesburg

Johannesburg has no old religious architecture — the city is younger than the buildings — but it has an unusual density of living traditions in one place: Zion Christian Church congregations that are the largest in Africa, traditional healers working from a market stall, mosques built by Gujarati traders, and the largest Jewish community on the continent. What is worth seeing is practice rather than monuments.

Regina Mundi · Free; ask at the office for the guide
Mai Mai traditional healers · Ask before photographing anything
Constitutional Court · Public hearings; anyone may walk in
Nizamiye Mosque · Open to visitors outside prayer times
Fordsburg and the Group Areas Act · The square; busiest at Ramadan
The Jewish quarter · Norwood and Glenhazel; kosher restaurants

Things to do in Johannesburg with kids

Gold Reef City · A theme park built on a real mine; the underground shaft tour is included
Maropeng · A boat ride through the formation of the earth, then real fossils
Lion and Safari Park · Lions from inside the car, 40 minutes north; windows stay up
Johannesburg Zoo · 1904, large and leafy, with night tours in summer
Zoo Lake · Rowing boats on the lake and lawn the whole way round; free
Carlton Centre top floor · Fifty floors up for a few rand; the whole plateau from one window
Orlando Towers · Bungee and a swing between two painted cooling towers
Walter Sisulu Garden · A waterfall, lawns, and a pair of eagles on the cliff above

Nightlife in Johannesburg

Johannesburg is not a city you walk at night, anywhere, and that is simply the operating rule rather than a judgement — people drive between venues even for two hundred metres, and a taxi app is the normal answer. Within that, the night here is one of the best in Africa: this is where house music became a national genre, and amapiano, which is now played worldwide, came out of these townships in the last decade.

Amapiano · Any club night; it is everywhere
Melville 7th Street · Taxi both ways; do not park on a side street
Soweto shisanyama at night · Sunday from mid-afternoon; arrange the drive back
Braamfontein · Thursday to Saturday; empty in December
Maboneng on a Sunday · Sunday; the rooftop at the end of the market
Live jazz · Check the listings; Newtown

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Frequently asked questions about Johannesburg

What is there to see in Johannesburg?

The top sights in Johannesburg are Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill and Hector Pieterson Museum. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Johannesburg?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Johannesburg without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Johannesburg?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Johannesburg, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The two museums that explain the country.

How do you get to Johannesburg and get around?

The main ways are OR Tambo Airport, Lanseria Airport and Park Station. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Johannesburg, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Johannesburg that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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