Soweto Tours & Things to Do in Soweto

Soweto Guided Tours: The City Sightseeing Joburg Soweto Tour (Johannesburg Sightseeing Tours)

As I mentioned in my last travel post on Johannesburg, I bought a 2-day bus & Soweto combo ticket from City Sightseeing Joburg.

That ticket allowed me to travel around Johannesburg on the City Sightseeing Joburg bus for two days and, on one of those days, jump into a smaller van to tour Soweto.

Soweto Tours Johannesburg

Before I go on and tell you about my experience on The City Sightseeing Joburg Soweto Tour Extension, you can browse a variety of other Soweto tours here.

Soweto Sightseeing #1: Go on the City Sightseeing Joburg Soweto Tour Extension (One of the Best Soweto Tours With Great Soweto Guides)

Since I had already bought a ticket for the City Sighteeing Joburg tour, I rode the City Sightseeing Joburg bus to Gold Reef City, and with the same ticket, hopped on to a van to tour Soweto.

After quick refreshments at Gold Reef City Casino, my travel companion and I, along with two other women on the tour, jumped into a small red van with the words SO WE TOO emblazoned on its side and made our way to Soweto.

READ ALSO: The City Sightseeing Johannesburg Tour & More on Visiting South Africa

We had to travel a distance to get to Soweto.

What caught my attention most as we made our way there was the vast stretch of empty land between where we’d come from and where we were going to.

Immediately, I began thinking about just how much the resettlement into townships was meant to separate races.

Resettlement didn’t move black South Africans to an area “of their own”; it moved them to an area of their own far away!

My mind kept racing with such thoughts as our guide Lindani gave us more information.

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Sightseeing Soweto #2: Visit Soccer City

Our first point of interest was Soccer City, the largest stadium in Africa, where the opening ceremony and final game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup took place.

A short while later, our van stopped at a sign that read “Welcome to Soweto”: we were at the entrance of Soweto in Diepkloof.

We got out to take pictures, to prove we’d been there in person, and then our tour began in earnest.

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Soweto’s Matchbox Houses

As we drove around Soweto, I saw lots of one-storey houses. The locals call them matchbox houses because of their size.

The government originally built these four-bedroom low-cost matchbox houses.

To me, they looked very much like lower middle class housing in many other African cities.

This in no way matched the picture of Soweto that I had in my mind. (I expected tin shacks and shanty towns—stupid I know…blame the media!).

Very soon, we passed a busy area filled with lots of activity.

To our left stood the third largest hospital in the world, the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital; to our right was the Baragwanath Taxi Rank, one of Johannesburg’s busiest.

Quickly (but carefully), we made our way through the crowd.

Places to Visit in Soweto #3: The Orlando Towers (Soweto Bungee Jumping)

Our next stop was at two tall brightly painted buildings that I was told are iconic of Soweto, the 100-meter tall Orlando Towers.

Formerly the cooling towers of a now-decommissioned power plant, the Orlando Towers hover above the Soweto skyline and are now a location for extreme sports (I will have to travel back to Johannesburg one day so I can bungee jump from there!)

Photo Credits: Tracy Hunter;  KNewman1;  Michael Denne; ToursinSouthAfrica.com;  George Groutas;  South African Tourism;  Getty Images; Stop Having A Boring Life, Store Norske Leksikon, NDLA