jimcoddington

My wife & I (mid 40's) will be traveling with my parents (mid 70's) to South Africa & Swaziland. My parents think we should hire a armed security guard, is that necessary? We will not travel when it is dark, and I have traveled to 70 plus different countries, so I feel very comfortable traveling.

Skatering

South African safety is just common sense, which you will have tonnes of having travelled to 70 countries. An armed security guard is very excessive unless you're carrying a bag of diamonds.

Swaziland is an incredibly safe country. The monarch has absolute power and anybody who commits crimes is at his mercy, so they tend not to.

dantorsiello

No safety concerns at all. My fiance and I (late 20s) flew into PHW, spent 3 nights in Kruger, self-drove to Moz for a night, headed over to Swaziland for 3 more nights, and then drove to JNB without any incident. At no point did we feel unsafe.

Common sense (and as a visitor of 70 countries, I'm sure you have plenty!) goes a long way. Do you know where you plan on entering Swaziland from SA?

HGOLI

I can also vouch for Swaziland being safe, with the obvious precautions taken, and I speak as a lone female who visited in June 16, and returning in March '17. I even hired a car (a small automatic, not a 4x4) and drove around quite happly for a week in Swaziland - the roads are generally good, but beware the speed hump! They are the work of the devil!

The only thing I wouldn't recommend, is driving at night. I can also recommend a couple of places to stay if you are interested, just PM me (not sure if you can, as I am new to the forum...?)

YWGtoAnywhere

Wife and I took a trip to SA December 2015 and had no safety concerns. We spent most of our time in/around Cape Town as well as a week in Kruger but no time in JoBurg.

Only precaution we were told to take was to avoid walking around alone at night if at all possible.

TominLazybrook

While SA can be dangerous, and JNB IS dangerous, I think that a security detail is excessive for most people.

I'd advise you to consider getting a Uber app on your phone (as well as a data plan). Uber's biggest advantage is that it appears to be more secure than a cab. They also can't charge you a stupid foreigner tax like Cab drivers sometimes do (by using bum meters, etc.).

Now that I have advised you to put something on your phone.....Now Be discreet about showing it in public. No need to be scared, but some caution is in order. That hunk of metal in your pocket, even used and stolen can be worth a month's wages to someone.

Also, in JNB, I use a 'throwdown wallet'. I put a few expired credit cards, and about 10 USD worth of local currency in it. If held up, immediately hand it to them...

As far as walking around at night in SA. If you see well dressed people around, you're probably fine. Cape Town is generally safe. I walk around at night in Cape Town, but if you don't want to, ubers are plentiful and VERY inexpensive.

Crime is part of the environment down there, and there is the possibility of danger, but I wouldn't go overboard with the security. Just proper planning and common sense should do you well.

Skatering

+1 to this (and the rest of the post)

One thing that stood out to me in SA is that nobody was walking around outside with their phones out. I also didn't see any earphones with wires heading into pockets/bags. If I needed to check my phone, I was very careful where and when I did it.

Pokemon GO must be a nightmare.

Cris L

I must confess to sometimes walking around with my phone in my hand on my visits, but then only when in fairly familiar environments and during day!

FWIW... I am South African but resident in U.K.

Cris L

Delete! Duplicate!

dcman

My step mom is South African and also a travel agent that specializes in Africa. The only real safety advice she gave me before I went to SA was not to street hail cabs in Jo Burg and be alert at night. She set up car service for me while I was in JB. I spent most of my time In and around Cape Town and Stellenbosch both seemed super safe to me. Walked around day and night without issue and for the most part by my self with my phone as a guide.

jsnydcsa

I cannot speak to Swaziland.

That said, I maintain that this thread
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/afric...city-city.html
is as applicable today as it was back when it started.

As to your question about an armed guard, I often half-jokingly tell people that in SA, with the exception of game reserves' rangers, if you're near people w/ guns you generally shouldn't be there.

T8191

Having recently spent 2 weeks in the Western Cape, including C.T., we just applied normal traveller's common sense. As a couple of Elders, we never felt uncomfortable for one minute. But then we did spend our time in the 'civilised' places (TR in my signature)

Doing a repeat performance in December.

johan rebel

"January 24 2013 at 01:43pm
By SAPA
Johannesburg - The Richmond local municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has the highest murder rate in the country, at 192 per 100 000 people, the SA Institute of Race Relations said on Thursday. A survey conducted by SAIRR showed that Richmond's murder rate was six times that of the national rate of 31 murders per 100 000 people in the 2011/2012.

Two municipalities also had murder rates much higher than the national rate. These were Sundays River Valley, in the Eastern Cape, with 178, and Victor Khanye local municipality, in Mpumalanga, with 177.

By contrast, Johannesburg's murder rate was 29. In Cape Town, the murder rate was 36. may prove to be important in preventing more serious crimes,” he said."

Those top three homicide rates are absolutely horrendous. All are more than double the rate for Honduras, the highest in the world on a national level. Cape Town's rate is about ten times that of the US, and substatially higher than Chicago's (28 in 2016).

Addo National Park is in the Sundays River Valley, by the way.

Johan

johan rebel

"Three Chinese nationals were checking in at the Holiday Inn hotel in Boksburg at about 10 o'clock local time when they were attacked by three men. The hotel is very close to OR Tambo International airport.

All three visitors were assaulted and one of them was shot in the upper body. The gun shot victim is still in an undisclosed hospital receiving treatment. The other two were discharged after being treated for injuries after being pistol whipped.

It's still unclear whether this robbery is another in a spate of robberies of a gang targeting tourists arriving at the airport and then robbing them in or near the hotels they are checking into.

Source

Johan

cur

i think people are wrong to say "common sense safety, you'll be fine". that is extremely naive. south africa is dangerous, it's just that the danger tends to be segregated like the country itself still is. and of course heinous crime spill out into the privileged areas (and these are the ones that get reported in the news, while a shocking number of rapes and murders go unreported in the news in the townships). if you get robbed it's not like first world "cooperate and everything will go ok", chances are you'll get shot in the heart after cooperating. people get thrown out of moving trains after cooperating. the crime here is something else.

this being said your odd of being victimized are still low. having an armed guard is overkill and i must ask, if your folks want to take this precaution, why do you want to visit in the first place?

that phone is worth several months income, not just a months

that throw wallet won't work when they point a gun or a knife at you and start picking thru all your pockets. it'll probably piss them off even more.

the white areas of cape town are yes generally safe but cape town has much higher crime rates than anywhere else in virtually all category. i think joburg only outdoes cpt in theft from unoccupied property.

nonetheless i agree, don't go overboard. i've been here 3 years and i'm fortunate to have not been victimized. but i also walk fast and flip out when strangers touch me. and i am hypervigilant, i think i avoided one mugging in the forest and one on the train. i love the moments when i go back to north america and i can park my car and not get stalked afterwards, or how i can just walk anywhere at night and not have to look behind me every 20 seconds. the fear of crime here is real.