Soweto and Johannesburg tour: Apartheid Museum, Mandela House

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.76 (54 reviews) 87% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/16

Duration6h–8h

GroupUp to 15

LanguagesEN · FR

PickupAt your hotel

The people and the streets behind Soweto's resistance

A guided tour of Soweto and central Johannesburg covering the Apartheid Museum, Mandela House on Vilakazi Street, the Hector Pieterson Museum, Constitution Hill and Hillbrow, with a live English or French-speaking guide and hotel pickup included. The tour moves beyond the 1976 uprising to show how people lived and still live in the township—the informal settlements alongside the upmarket suburbs, the taxi culture, the muti shops and the ordinary streets where extraordinary resistance took root.

6h–8h

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Soweto and Johannesburg highlights

Drive through Johannesburg suburbs and Hillbrow
Pass Constitution Hill and city downtown
Visit Muti shop for traditional medicine
Drive through Soweto's upmarket suburbs and informal settlements
See Baragwanath hospital and taxi rank
Drive past Winnie Mandela's and Desmond Tutu's houses
Visit Mandela House on Vilakazi Street
Visit Hector Peterson Museum and Memorial
Visit Apartheid Museum

The Experience

You start in central Johannesburg, driving through Hillbrow and past Constitution Hill, a former prison complex now home to the Constitutional Court. The route takes you through the downtown and into the suburbs—both the poverty of informal settlements and the upper-class neighborhoods of Diepkloof—so you see the full geography of the city before arriving in Soweto itself.

In Soweto, the guide takes you to Vilakazi Street, where Nelson Mandela lived from 1946 to 1962 and where Archbishop Desmond Tutu also lived—the only street in the world to claim two Nobel Laureates as residents. You visit Mandela House Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial, which preserves the memory of the 1976 student uprisings. Along the way you pass the houses of Winnie Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, the sites of the 1976 uprisings, and the Baragwanath hospital and taxi rank—landmarks of daily life in the township. A stop at a traditional muti shop shows the African herbal medicine trade that still operates in the neighborhood.

The tour ends at the Apartheid Museum, where the full arc of South African history is laid out. Water is included throughout the day; parking fees are covered. The whole experience runs six to eight hours and is wheelchair accessible, with transportation options available for people with mobility needs.

What’s included

Hotel pickup and drop-off.
a live guide in English or French.
entry to Mandela House Museum, Hector Pieterson Museum and the Apartheid Museum.
parking fees.
water throughout the day.

Operated by Jeff Tours and Transfers - Day Tours

Is this one for you?The tour runs six to eight hours with most time spent in the vehicle between neighborhoods, so it suits a full morning or afternoon rather than a quick stop. You'll walk at each museum and memorial, but the pace is set by the guide and there are no long stretches on foot.