For our first outing in Joburg we decided to take the Hop-on, Hop-off City Sightseeing Red Bus tour to get a peek into some of the neighborhoods of downtown Johannesburg.  The bus has only been in operation since February this year in Joburg but we have always  enjoyed this tour in Cape Town (in fact we have set aside a day for this on each of our trips there) and this ended up being a great intro to the city for us.

There are a total of 12 possible stops, not including the optional Soweto tour.  It is impossible to hop on/off at every stop in one day so I suggest you study the route in advance and plan your day carefully to get to see your top spots.  It would likely take the better part of 3 days to really see everything on the route.

As we are totally Joburg newbies, we didn’t feel comfortable yet (still don’t) driving in the CBD (Central Business District) , so we drove to Sandton to park and took the Gautrain to Park Station, the first stop of the tour (you can however start wherever you like).

Waiting for the Gautrain at Sandton Station

Continue reading →