Dangers & annoyances at Johanesburg

Dangers & annoyances at Johanesburg

Pay careful attention to your personal security in Jo’burg. Daylight muggings in the city centre and other inner suburbs, notably Hillbrow, are not uncommon and you must be constantly on your guard. You’d be crazy to walk around central Jo’burg at night – if you arrive after dark and don’t have a car, catch a taxi to your final destination.

Crime is a big problem, but it is important to put things in perspective: remember that most travellers come and go without incident and that much of the crime afflicts parts of the city you would have little reason to stray into. It’s when using ATMs that you’re most vulnerable. Seek local advice, listen to it and remain aware of what’s going on around you.

While you're there

Emergency :
AIDS line (0800-012 322)
Fire (10111)
Rape Crisis Line (116 1888)
SA Police Headquarters (10111; Main Rd)

Medical services
Johannesburg General Hospital (011-488 4911; M1/Jubilee Rd, Parktown) Jo’burg’s main public hospital.

Getting around Johanesburg

JIA is located about 25km east of central Johannesburg in Kempton Park. Between 5am and 10pm, buses run every half hour between JIA and Park Station (US$11, 45 minutes). The area immediately around Park Station is confusing and known for muggings. The Airport Link (884 3957) is a reputable airport shuttle. Taxis are expensive at around US$43 one way to the northern suburbs. Most hostels will collect you from the airport.

Metropolitan Bus Services (Metrobus; 375 5555; www.mbus.co.za; Gandhi Sq) runs services covering 108 routes in the Greater Jo’burg area. Fares work on a zone system, ranging from zone one (US$0.50) to zone eight (US$1.40).

If you do take a minibus taxi into central Jo’burg, be sure to get off before it reaches the end of the route and avoid the taxi rank – it’s a mugging zone. US$0.70 will get you around the inner suburbs and the city centre, and US$1.20 will get you almost anywhere.

Taxis operate meters if they work. It’s wise to ask a local the likely price and agree on a fare at the outset. From the taxi rank at Park Station to Rosebank should cost around US$10.

There has been a very serious problem with violent crime on the metro system, mostly on those lines connecting with black townships. The Jo’burg–Pretoria metro line should also be avoided.

Getting Johanerburd & away

Land
Bus

A number of international bus services leave Jo’burg from the Park Station complex for Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

The main long-distance bus lines (national and international) also depart from and arrive at the Park Station transit centre, in the northwest corner of the site, where you will also find their respective booking offices.

Translux, City to City, Greyhound, SA Roadlink, Greyhound and Intercape service major and minor destinations. With the exception of City to City buses, which commence in Jo’burg, all services that are not heading north commence in Pretoria at the Pretoria station. Some sample fares are Cape Town (US$51 to US$63, 19 hours), Durban (US$17 to US$28, eight hours), Nelspruit (US$11 to US$25, five hours), East London (US$43, 15 hours) via Bloemfontein (US$20, seven hours), and Plettenberg Bay (US$42, 18 hours).

Baz Bus (021-439 2323; www.bazbus.com) now services backpackers from Jo’burg.


Air

South Africa’s major international and domestic airport is Johannesburg International Airport (JIA; 921 6262; www.acsa.co.za).

All regular flights to national and regional destinations can be booked through SAA, which also has offices in the domestic and international terminals of JIA.

Smaller budget airlines, including Comair, Kulula, 1Time and Nationwide, also link Jo’burg with major destinations and often have much cheaper fares.

Introducing Johannesburg for Traveling

Travel Alert: Crime is a serious problem in Johannesburg;
see the Dangers & Annoyances section for details.

Jo’burg, or ‘Jozi’ as it’s more commonly known, is without a doubt the great big beating heart of South Africa, and has long played a Jekyll-and-Hyde role in the global consciousness. Often the stage on which the epic of this extraordinary nation has been played out, the colossus of Jo’burg – with all its thrills and foibles – is today a fascinating, multitudinous city, where all the ups and downs of 21st-century South Africa can be witnessed in three, multicolour dimensions.

In the past, the city’s darker personality proved the most enduring. The Jo’burg of the newsflash was a city where fear and loathing reigned supreme; a city where spiralling gun crime and poverty had manifested itself in a society where one half of the population stagnated, while the other looked on impassively through coils of razor wire.

As ever, there is an element of truth to the stereotypes. Jo’burg does bear scars of South Africa’s turbulent 20th century, and many will take time to heal. Stark inequalities persist, but armed with a new self-confidence – ironically most pronounced in the infamous township of Soweto – Africa’s giant hub is beginning to introduce itself to a healthier diet of urban renewal and social regeneration.