Cape Town Must Visit Robben Island

By Ellen – (Updated Mar 2023)

⏱ 3 min

This post is on one of the top must-visit sites in Cape Town: Robben Island. Our last post on Cape Town features what to do in and around Cape Town, but Robben Island deserves its own short post. Plus, it takes a half-day to visit, which is why I consider it a “day trip from Cape Town”.

Why visit Robben Island?

Robben Island is one of the most impactful places I’ve visited. Whenever someone asks me what they should do in Cape Town, I always recommend visiting Robben Island. The island has a long history, but it is most famous for the imprisoning of thousands of political prisoners who were considered the most dangerous and feared, during the apartheid era.

No political prisoner was more famous than Nelson Mandela, who spent 18 years in prison on Robben Island. Mandela lived in a 2×2 meter cell and was forced into harsh labor along with the other prisoners. The prisoners worked long days on the island’s quarries, and many of them suffered permanent eye damage. It is an eye-opening experience and gives you insight into the dark times that have shaped South Africa to be the country it is today.

How to get to Robben Island

The standard tour to Robben Island is about 4 hours in total. You take a ferry trip to get to the island, which is about 30 minutes each way. The ferry leaves from the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, with tours running every day of the week, weather permitting. Check here for up-to-date schedule and fares.

What to expect when you arrive

Once you disembark on Robben Island, you will be led to a bus where you’ll meet your tour guide. The tour guides are fully knowledgeable about the 500+ year history of the island. Interestingly, it started out as a place for prisoners and the sick way back in the 1600’s by the Dutch.

Today, all tour guides are ex-prisoners! Freedom Fighters, from the apartheid era. The tour is incredibly moving, as the history and stories are told by a person who spent time in prison there. Our tour guide was Derek Basson, and he was thrown into prison when he was 18 years old. Derek Basson, Nelson Mandela, and the rest of these political prisoners on Robben Island simply wanted equal rights, and yet they were labeled as dangerous.

The tour takes you through the graveyard of people who died on the island from leprosy, the quarries, the Maximum Security Prison, Mandela’s cell, and more. Whether you’re a history lover or not, when you’re visiting Cape Town you don’t want to skip a visit to Robben Island. It is a World Heritage site because “the buildings on the island are a reminder of South Africa’s sad history but it is the same buildings that also show the power of the human spirit, freedom, and the victory of democracy over oppression.”

Google Arts & Culture has done a wonderful virtual tour of Robben Island, in case you are not able to visit and would like to learn more.

View the Google Arts & Culture Virtual Tour Here

More ideas for day trips from Cape Town