Cape Town
A working city wedged between a mountain and two oceans.
4 to 6 nights
10 days · 9 nights
Ten Days in the Cape
What the Cape week becomes when nobody is in a hurry. The same region, three more nights, and room for the things that get cut first: a boat, a charter, the canopy tour, and a second day on the peninsula.
- Length
- 10 days · 9 nights
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Suited to
- couples, families, returning visitors, keen walkers
- When to go
- Best from October to May. In whale season, July to November, the coastal nights become the strongest part of the trip.
The difference between seven days here and ten is not more places. It is the things that get cut first.
A boat. A fishing morning. Walking the mountain instead of riding it. A second run at the peninsula without the drive back into the city at the end. Three extra nights buy all of that, and none of it requires going anywhere new.
The night on the peninsula
The one structural change from the seven-day week, and it is the one guests most often say they would repeat. Doing the peninsula loop and then staying out there turns a long day into two easy ones, gets you onto an empty beach in the evening, and puts you on a boat at first light if you want one.
If you are going on to a safari
We run the Cape leg and hand you over cleanly at the airport with the internal flight booked. We do not operate in the Lowveld or the Eastern Cape, and we would rather do one region properly than pretend otherwise.
The route
Day by day
Day 1
Landing
Your guide meets you at arrivals and drives you in. Nothing scheduled. Dinner booked walkably close and early.
- Where you stay
- Boutique hotel, City Bowl
- Meals included
- Dinner
Days 2 to 3
The city and the mountain
Bo-Kaap in the morning light, the District Six Museum, Kirstenbosch under the eastern buttresses, and the cableway on whichever morning the wind allows. With ten days there is room to walk the mountain rather than ride it, and Platteklip with a mountain guide at seven in the morning is a genuinely good use of one of them.
- Where you stay
- Boutique hotel, City Bowl
- Meals included
- Breakfast
- What you might do
Day 4
On the water
Cape Town is a port and it is worth getting off the land. A deep-sea charter out of Hout Bay for yellowtail, the seal island boat if the party includes children, a catamaran across Table Bay for the view back at the mountain, or a helicopter along the Twelve Apostles. Your guide picks the morning from the swell forecast.
- Where you stay
- Boutique hotel, City Bowl
- Meals included
- Breakfast
- What you might do
Day 5
A day of your own
Nothing booked and everything available. Most people use it for a beach, a long lunch in Constantia, the Zeitz MOCAA, or the pool. If the mountain has been shut all week, this is when we take it.
- Where you stay
- Boutique hotel, City Bowl
- Meals included
- Breakfast
Day 6
Down the peninsula, and stay there
The peninsula run clockwise, penguins early and Cape Point by eleven, then Dias Beach and the walk down to it, lunch at Noordhoek, and Chapman's Peak in the afternoon light. Instead of driving back into the city you stay out here, at Simon's Town or Noordhoek, which means the beach in the evening, a ride along the waterline if you want one, and no traffic in either direction.
- Where you stay
- Small hotel, Simon's Town
- Meals included
- Breakfast, Lunch
- What you might do
Days 7 to 8
Two nights in the Winelands
North to Stellenbosch or Franschhoek. One full day built around three estates rather than six, with the cellar visits arranged in advance and lunch somewhere with a view and two clear hours in it. The second day is slower: a mountain pass, an olive farm, a market, or simply the pool.
- Where you stay
- Wine estate, Franschhoek valley
- Meals included
- Breakfast, Lunch
- What you might do
Day 9
The canopy tour, and the coast
Over the mountains into the Elgin valley for the canopy tour, thirteen slides down a forested gorge with a waterfall under the middle of it. Lunch in the valley, then down to Hermanus and the cliff path in the last of the light. In whale season the southern rights are directly below you, and if the swell is right there is a shark cage boat out of Gansbaai in the morning.
- Where you stay
- Small coastal hotel, Hermanus
- Meals included
- Breakfast, Dinner
- What you might do
Day 10
The coast road home
Back along the R44 between the mountains and the sea, with a stop at Betty's Bay for the second penguin colony almost nobody visits. Ninety minutes to the airport, unhurried.
- Meals included
- Breakfast
What is included
What is included
- A registered guide with you for all ten days
- Private vehicle and all ground transport, airport to airport
- All accommodation, chosen and booked by us
- Daily breakfast plus the meals marked on each day
- Park fees, reserve entry and conservation levies
- Restaurant bookings, cellar visits and activity reservations arranged in advance
- A number that reaches one of us at any hour, with your itinerary in front of them
What is not
- International flights and visas
- Travel insurance, which we ask every guest to carry
- Meals not marked on the itinerary
- Drinks, gratuities and anything of a personal nature
- Optional extras such as helicopter flights, charters, boat trips and the canopy tour
We publish no figures on this website, because the same fortnight varies enormously with the properties, the season and the size of the party. You get one total covering everything listed above, before anything becomes payable.
Guests who travelled on this itinerary
Nine of us, aged from four to seventy-eight, which is not a party most operators want. Cape Compass did not blink at it. They asked more questions about my mother's mobility than about our budget, and every viewpoint on the peninsula day turned out to be one she could actually reach. The vehicle was large enough that nobody had to sit in the back and shout. The guide learned by the second day who needed lunch at noon and who wanted to keep walking, and split us up accordingly without making it awkward. I have organised family holidays before and I have never had one where I did not, at some point, want to go home.
The Okonkwo party
Houston, Texas ·
10 days · the full Cape circuit with three generations
Placeholder testimonial. Replace with a real guest review before launch.
I have done a fair amount of travelling for work and I am difficult about logistics. Ten days, no internal flights at all, and not a single moment where I did not know what was happening next or who was responsible for it. The advice I valued most was the advice against things. I wanted to bolt a safari onto the end and was told, politely and with reasons, that in the days I had it would turn one good trip into two rushed ones. They were right. It is not what most companies do when you offer to spend more money with them.
Michael D.
Boston, Massachusetts ·
10 days · Cape Town, the peninsula, Stellenbosch and Hermanus
Placeholder testimonial. Replace with a real guest review before launch.
Where this trip goes
The Cape Peninsula
Forty miles of mountain and ocean, ending at a lighthouse.
0 to 2 nights
The Cape Winelands
Three hundred years of vines, an hour from the airport.
2 to 3 nights
The Whale Coast and Overberg
Whales below the cliff path, and a forest gorge on the way there.
1 to 3 nights
What you might do
Scenic
Table Mountain
The flat top of the city, by cable car or on foot.
Two to three hours by cable car, half a day on foot
Scenic
Cape Point
A lighthouse on a cliff at the end of the peninsula.
Half a day, or a full day combined with the penguins
Wildlife
The penguins at Boulders
Two thousand African penguins on a suburban beach.
An hour and a half, usually part of a peninsula day
Adventure
Horse riding on Noordhoek beach
Eight kilometres of empty sand, and nothing else on it.
Two hours, or a half day with the wine estate ride
Food and wine
Wine tasting in the Cape
Three estates, one long lunch, and a guide who drives.
A full day, or a half day from Cape Town
Adventure
Fishing charters
Yellowtail and tuna out of Hout Bay, or calmer water in False Bay.
Half day from four hours, full day from eight
Scenic
Boat trips and sunset cruises
Seal Island out of Hout Bay, or a glass of something off Clifton.
Forty minutes to three hours, depending on the boat
Adventure
Zip lining in the Overberg
Thirteen slides through an indigenous forest gorge above Elgin.
Half a day, about three hours on the cables plus the drive
Scenic
Helicopter flights
Twenty minutes over the peninsula, or a valley-to-valley transfer.
Twenty minutes to an hour, plus briefing
Adventure
Shark cage diving
Gansbaai, a surface cage, and no diving qualification needed.
A morning, roughly five hours on the water and back
Worth reading first
Planning ·
When to visit Cape Town, month by month
High summer is not the best month here, and winter is a great deal better than its reputation. A month-by-month guide to the Cape, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
Planning ·
The peninsula day, in the right order
Almost every visitor drives the Cape Peninsula the same way round, at the same time, and meets every coach in the Western Cape at Cape Point. There is no reason to, and the day is transformed by running it backwards.
Use this as a starting point
Almost every trip we run began as one of these and ended up somewhere else. Tell us roughly what you have in mind and we will redraw it around you. Six questions, about three minutes.
We reply to every enquiry within one working day.