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Doing family holidays well

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If you’ve been setting aside some funds for a well-needed break and you’ve survived packing up half the house into the car for a daring trip to the coast with your family, you want to make sure that you all enjoy the holiday.

You might not have time to find out about some of the fun things to do – but if you’re heading to Cape Town, there’s loads on offer, though. Here are some things the Mother City is doing to make sure families have loads of fun:

Keeping it small

If your budget has mostly gone into food and accommodation, you’ll probably be scouting out some value-for-money activities, too. From hippo watching to lighthouse visits, there’s a huge list of exciting activities for moms, dads and kids, all for under R50 (approximately!). Sounds too good to be true, but Cape Town Tourism is determined to make the city a family friendly destination, so they’ve created this awesome list, which includes Bugz Family Play Park, a restaurant which serves only chocolate, wild (free!) skateboarding events on the Sea Point promenade and loads more: 50 things to do for under R50 in Cape Town.

Keep an eye open for the Cape Town Tourism Visitor Information Centres to get info on what’s happening in the city, like attending a free concert at De Waal Park, visiting some of the local parks or taking a walk on the legendary Table Mountain itself. Did you know that Cape Town has a whopping 72 beaches with a coastline extending 307km along the West Coast, Cape Peninsula and False Bay?

Hotels and guesthouses have a variety of family-friendly options, too. There are some lovely venues out in the ‘burbs so you can get away from city life and enjoy the peace and quiet. You could enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands before heading out to Imhoff Farm for a camel ride. The farm also has a petting area where you can meet some furry friends, and browse the charming village shops in Kommetjie near Long beach.

Right at the other end of the Peninsula you have Simon’s Town, with the famous penguins of Boulders Beach, the Toy Museum, Scratch Patch and Just Nuisance, the statue of the dog that everyone snaps a fun photo with.

Speaking of outdoors, there’s Newlands Forest, Tokai Forest, the wetlands out at Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei and an entire chain of mountains and hills to tackle on foot or on the designated cycle or even scooter tracks. The beauty of Cape Town is that the climate is mild, so you can do almost all of these all year round. 

Cape Town also has its own Official Guide to Cape Town app with plenty more suggestions including maps, listings and all the main events for 2015 and 2016.

The only challenge you’ll have is finding the time to do as much as possible, but, don’t worry, you can always come back for a weekend-breakaway and tick off some more items on the list.

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