South Africa Solo Female Travel Safety Tips and Advice

On this page you will find first-hand, unbiased, and real safety tips, advice and reviews from women traveling solo, submitted directly from their personal experiences in the country.

Their opinions are unfiltered and submitted independently as part of the Solo Female Travel Safety Index, a ranking of 210 countries and regions based on how safe they are for women traveling solo.

The safety scores range from 1 to 4 with 1 being the safest and 4 being the most dangerous for solo female travelers.

You don’t need to login to read the below reviews. But do sign up or login to share your solo travel experiences, country safety rating and comments.

South Africa Country data

We have compiled a few data points below that can help you better understand South Africa and have more context when thinking about travel safety.

Official country name: Republic of South Africa.

Etymology: Self-descriptive name from the country's location on the continent. "Africa" is derived from the Roman designation of the area corresponding to present-day Tunisia "Africa terra," which meant "Land of the Afri" (the tribe resident in that area), but which eventually came to mean the entire continent.

Capital: Pretoria is the administrative capital, Cape Town the legislative capital and Bloemfontein the judicial capital.

Independence / foundation: After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the settlers of Dutch descent trekked north to found their own republics, Transvaal and Orange Free State.

In the 1820s, several decades of wars began as the Zulus expanded their territory. The Anglo-Zulu War (1879) resulted in the incorporation of the Zulu kingdom's territory into the British Empire. Subsequently, the Afrikaner republics were incorporated into the British Empire after their defeat in the Second South African War (1899-1902).

However, the British and the Afrikaners ruled together beginning in 1910 under the Union of South Africa, which became a republic in 1961 after a whites-only referendum.

Population: 58 million.

Currency: South African Rand (ZAR)
1 USD = 18.48 - 19.06 ZAR
1 EUR = 20.06 - 20.62 ZAR

Time zone: UTC+2

Languages spoken: IsiZulu (official) 25%, isiXhosa (official) 15%, Afrikaans (official) 12%, Sepedi (official) 10%, Setswana (official) 9%, English (official) 8%, Sesotho (official) 8%, Xitsonga (official) 4%, siSwati (official) 3%, Tshivenda (official) 2%, isiNdebele (official) 2%, other (includes Khoi, Nama, and San languages) 2%/. Note - data represent language spoken most often at home.

Religions: Christian 86%, ancestral, tribal, animist, or other traditional African religions 5%, Muslim 2%, other 1%, nothing in particular 5%.

Climate: Mostly semiarid. Subtropical climate along east coast with sunny days and cool nights.

Real GDP (ppp – purchasing power parity): $807 billion.

Real GDP per capita (ppp): $13,500.

Main airports: OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport, King Shaka International Airport.

World heritage sites in South Africa

There are over 1,100 world heritage sites spread across more than 165 countries. New ones are added every year, and some may be removed from the list for various reasons.

Number of UNESCO listed sites: 10.

Top world heritage sites:

- Vredefort Dome.
- iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
- Robben Island.
- Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa.
- Maloti-Drakensberg Park.
- Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape.
- Cape Floral Region Protected Areas.
- Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape.
- Khomani Cultural Landscape.
- Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains.

Interesting facts about South Africa

- Anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by the South African government for 27 years. After his release in 1990, he was elected as the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

- Vilakazi Street in Soweto is the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

- South Africa is home to the endangered African Penguin.

- The Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet along the southern and southwestern Cape coast between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.

Further reading: N/A.

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South Africa Travel tips

More about South Africa on Solo Female Travelers

Coming soon.

Did you spot any errors? We do our best to keep this information updated and accurate, but things change. If you saw anything that is not right, let us know so we can fix it: [email protected].

About the Solo Female Travel Safety Index

Safety matters to solo female travelers, you told us so in our annual Solo Female Travel Survey, where year after year, women prove that this is their most important concern when traveling solo.

We wanted to do something about it, so we built these country-specific pages where you can find reviews and scores for 7 key variables affecting the safety of women traveling solo.

How to use the Safety Index

On this page, you will find the country score and the personal opinions on safety of other women traveling solo.

You can sort the comments by:

• The level of experience traveling solo of the reviewer (beginner = <5 trips solo, Intermediate = 5 to 10 trips solo, Experienced = >10 trips solo).
• The age of the traveler.
• Whether they are a visitor or local.
• The date they were posted.

The safety scores range from 1 to 4 with 1 being the safest and 4 being the most dangerous for solo female travelers. 

Thus, the lower the score, the safer the country.

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Looking for more safety resources?

This entire website is devoted to helping women travel solo. Check out the links below to learn more:

Solo Female Travel Stats: Results from the the largest, most comprehensive and only global research study on solo female travel trends, preferences and behaviors published.

Thanks to Jacobo Vilella for creating the Solo Female Travelers Safety Index ❤️