Africa - Living in Joburg for 9 weeks - advice?

Hi guys,

I'm going with one other person to work in Joburg for about nine weeks next week. We havent really planned it all out, so I was wondering if I could get some advice from the people here.

I'll be working near WITS, so would like to get housing somewhere around there. I've heard WITS JUnction is good but expensive, so does anyone else know anything in the area that might be good for a temp stay for a few months. We would need a 2 bedroom if possible, but can probably make it work with a one bedroom if need be. Our plan originally was to fly in to JNB, get a hotel, and look for places to live while we stayed a few nights in the hotel. Any decent hotels at a decent price (hopefully around WITS) that we can stay at?

Plugs - So SA is M plugs? For my laptop, all I'd need is to get one of those M Plugs right? Do I need to make sure the voltage/wattage matches up? Or will the laptop plug do the conversion already for me. Sorry for (probably) a dumb question. Just dont know how currents work..

For a cell phone - I have an old blackberry that I think has GSM capability. Otherwise, I have all verizon phones that are only CDMA ready I'm told. So do I just need to unlock the BB and put in a SA pin? Or should I just rent/buy a crappy phone there? Any idea how to unlock it?

Things to do.... We had planned to spend weekends trying to do stuff. So far, we've only looked at doing Cape Town one weekend, and sometime before we leave going to Kruger for a safari. Any good companies you rec for safaris out there?

Any other insight you could provide would be great...


Thanks in advance!

Welcome to Flyertalk. :)

I believe Wits rents out its residences during the winter break which would be a cheap option but that only covers you for about four weeks from mid-June to mid-July. Have you tried phoning the accommodation office?

South Africa is 220 volts but laptops should be able to take multiple voltages. The battery pack should say something like 100-240V. Other appliances will probably require a transformer.

Have a look at this (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/africa-459/) thread for info on using a cell phone.

Make sure you have a car lined up. Johannesburg is no fun if you have to rely on spotty public transportation. If you're coming from the USA, that means getting used to driving on the "other" side of the road.

Other than that, living in Joburg is pretty much like living in any major city of the world. There are good parts of town and bad parts of town. If you have a reasonable amount of disposable income, it can be a very enjoyable town though.

Thanks for the response guys.

I plan on renting a car from : http://www.rentawreck.co.za/
Someone here recommended it as a cheap place to rent a car while I'm there.

Thanks for the link on the cell phone, really useful.

I have tried contacting WITS, but they've been pretty unhelpful thus far. They gave me the contact for the International House there, but they told me it's full, so I have to look elsewhere. Dont know where that elsewhere is quite yet. Any recs on hotels out there?

For anyone that lives out there - what is the part of town that WITS is in? I cant seem to find that info from Google Maps...

Thanks for the response guys.

I plan on renting a car from : http://www.rentawreck.co.za/
Someone here recommended it as a cheap place to rent a car while I'm there.

Thanks for the link on the cell phone, really useful.

I have tried contacting WITS, but they've been pretty unhelpful thus far. They gave me the contact for the International House there, but they told me it's full, so I have to look elsewhere. Dont know where that elsewhere is quite yet. Any recs on hotels out there?

For anyone that lives out there - what is the part of town that WITS is in? I cant seem to find that info from Google Maps...

The main campus is between the city centre and Parktown. There are smaller campuses a bit further north (but still close to the main one) in Parktown itself.

Wits is now officially known as the University of Johannesburg. The main camopus is just north of Brixton. If you do a search for "University of Johannesburg - Kingsway Campus" it will come up on Google maps.

North of the campus used to be some quite pleasant suburbs but what it is like now, I have no idea.

It might pay you to look further north and commute into work.

Wits is now officially known as the University of Johannesburg. The main camopus is just north of Brixton. If you do a search for "University of Johannesburg - Kingsway Campus" it will come up on Google maps.


Wits (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) and University of Johannesburg are two different universities.