This past weekend, we were invited by Wenchy to join her on a #HopOnHopOff bus tour of Jozi run by City Sightseeing South Africa. For the longest time, Ava has been nagging to go on a bus ride and this was the perfect opportunity for her to have her bus ride and I thought, a nice family day out.

Let me start off by saying, the #HopOnHopOff tour far outweighed my expectations. It was absolutely fabulous. We met at Park Station, which really is world class, collected our tickets and hopped on the gleaming red bus, much to Ava’s delight, to set off on our tour of Jozi.

We had my mom visiting and had to get her to the airport by 3pm so we were hesitant to get off at the many stops along the way and stayed on the bus for a round trip tour which lasted about 2 hours. The bus passed and made stops at a number of fascinating spots, both Walter and I have agreed to redo the tour, the next time make sure we #HopOnHopOff at all the stops!

Included in the Jozi tour were stops at Ghandi Square, Cartlon Centre (which included a guided tour), James Hall Transport Museum, Gold Reef City, Apartheid Museum, Mining District, Newtown, Origins Centre @ Wits, Braamfontein and then Constitution Hill before heading back to Park Station.

There were some AMAZING sights along the way!

Tickets cost R170 (currently on special for R130) for a day pass which allows you to #HopOnHopOff at any and all the stops along the route and it’s valid for an entire day so you get to explore all the stops at your leisure and the buses run every 30 minutes over weekends and public holidays and every 40 minutes Monday to Friday, so when you’re ready, you hang out at the red bus stop and hop on to the next bus coming past.

New earphones are included in your ticket which can be plugged into the ports on the bus and which offer an amazing auditory experience of the tour.

It really was the most amazing outing and I’d highly recommend it to everyone. I’m so going again, I really want to go up the Carlton Centre and visit the Transport Museum, not to mention a tour of Constitution Hill.

The tour reminded me of Jozi’s amazing and rich history, we so often forget what an amazing city we live in and the tour reminded me of that…. there were so many interesting bits of information about Jozi, like:

• Jozi is the largest city in the world NOT build around the ocean or lake.
• Jozi is the largest man made forest in the world

I really can’t say enough about how much we enjoyed the tour. Even Walter who was sort of dragging his feet to go, loved it in the end. We’re planning to do the extended Soweto tour when my folks and brother visit in September as part of my Dad’s 70th birthday celebrations.

Really, really, this is an excellent outing for the whole family, my kids, especially Ava, really loved it and it was great fun, clean, well organized and super friendly staff too.

Do it! Just go #HopOnHopOff