Cape Town Top of the World

Cape Town came out tops in this year's Travellers Choice Destinations Awards by TripAdvisor. With a huge jump from 25^th last year, Cape Town finally takes its right­ful place as the favour­ite des­tin­a­tion in the world as chosen by mil­lions of trav­el­lers. Congrats to the "Mother City"!

Cape Town #1 on TripAdvisor
Travellers' Choice 2011 Best Destinations in the World Continued

Tswalu named one of the world’s most romantic hotels by Travel + Leisure magazine 2011

Tswalu Kalahari, South Africa’s largest privately owned game reserve, has been voted one of the World’s 50 Most Romantic Hotels by Travel + Leisure magazine. According to Travel + Leisure, one of the most pres­ti­gi­ous and highly regarded travel magazines in the world, “.. there are as many ways to define romance as there are humans, but this list of the world’s most romantic hotels has some­thing for (almost) every­one.” Continued

Condé Nast Travellers vote Pezula Spa one of the best in the World

Pezula Spa

Pezula Spa at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, Knysna, was named one of the top spas in the world in the Condé Nast Traveller’s annual Readers’ Spa Awards 2011, held in London last week.

The awards high­light the finest spas around the globe includ­ing the best hotel spas, spa retreats, day spas and thermal spas, based on read­ers’ votes on cri­teria includ­ing spa facil­it­ies, indi­vidual approach, ambience/design, body and facial treat­ments, amen­it­ies and products, exer­cise pro­grammes, cuisine, as well as qual­ity of ser­vice and staff. Continued

Tswalu guides excel

The team of five guides at Tswalu Kalahari Private Game Reserve have writ­ten and passed their FGASA Level 3 exams, says Managing Director Russel Binks. This means that the guides are qual­i­fied to “point out and explain in terms of sci­entific the­ory and cul­tural belief, the fea­tures of the nat­ural envir­on­ment in which s/he is oper­at­ing, and put it into broader eco­lo­gical context”.

According to The Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA), which provides edu­ca­tional oppor­tun­it­ies to pro­mote the con­ser­va­tion and rehab­il­it­a­tion of the cul­tural and nat­ural her­it­age of Southern Africa, the know­ledge and insight expec­ted at Level 3 is unlikely to be obtained without at least two years of act­ive guid­ing in the field.  “A gen­eral dis­tinc­tion between the com­pet­ence at this level as opposed to lower levels is the abil­ity to explain phe­nom­ena by means of valid and well-motivated sci­entific the­or­ies and the con­com­it­ant use of appro­pri­ate sci­entific ter­min­o­logy.” Continued

The SA-Venues.com Blog is a SA Blog Awards Finalist!

SA-Venues Blog in Top 10

If you appre­ci­ate our blog, we would really appre­ci­ate your Vote! To vote for us to win the Best SA Blog Award in the TRAVEL cat­egory ... PLEASE Click here to VOTE for us! Please! (Once you click on that link you will need to scroll down and enter your e-mail address so that they can con­firm your vote). And if you REALLY like us, you can even vote for us more than once! (You can vote once every 24 hours)!

We are incred­ibly proud and excited that the SA-Venues.com Blog has made it into the final­ists of the Top 10 Travel Blogs in South Africa. Having looked at the other 9 Top 10 Finalists, we are humbled to have made it into the top 10 as all the blogs in this cat­egory are all of a very high stand­ard ... Continued

South Africa still a Favourite with Travelers according to TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor Awards

TripAdvisor has just released its Travelers’ Choice lists for 2010 and Cape Town is still a favour­ite with travelers.

Ranked #25 in the Top 25 Destinations in the WORLD, though Europeans ranked our fair city #6. The “Mother City” also fea­tured on a num­ber of other lists:

• #1 in the Top 25 Destinations in Africa
• #2 in the Top 10 Culture & Sightseeing Destinations in Africa
• #4 in the Top 10 Outdoor & Adventure Destinations in Africa
• #6 in the Top 10 Beach & Sun Destinations in Africa Continued

Cape Town on Forbes.com "World's most beautiful Cities" list

Cape Town

Forbes.com has just pub­lished their annual "World's most beau­ti­ful Cities" list and this year Cape Town joins Paris, Vancouver, Sydney, Florence, Venice, London as one of the world's most beau­ti­ful cities.

Forbes.com on Cape Town ...
Open space makes Cape Town spe­cial, says Levitt. Renowned English sea nav­ig­ator Sir Francis Drake once referred to Cape Town as the fairest cape in the world. The city houses the Kirstenbosch botan­ical garden, and the top of Table Mountain offers a breath­tak­ing view of the city from roughly 3,500 feet above sea level. Levitt, an envir­on­mental engin­eer, praises the city's min­imal eco­lo­gical foot­print, a res­ult of its "man­age­able size." Continued

4 Oscar Nominations for District 9, 2 for Invictus

Oscar Nominations

The Sci-Fi box office hit "District 9" scores 4 Oscar Nominations for Best Film; Visual Effects; Film Editing and Writing (Adapted Screenplay) and "Invictus" scores 2 Oscar nom­in­a­tions includ­ing the coveted Actor in a Leading Role for Morgan Freeman and Actor in a Supporting Role for Matt Damon ... Continued

Cape Town a World Top 10 Party City

Lonely Planet has cre­ated a new guide, the “1000 Ultimate Experiences” and South Africa can feel proud as Cape Town has been awar­ded a place of hon­our in the world’s top 10 party cit­ies. Other coun­tries in the top 10 are Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Montreal, Canada and Thessaloniki, Greece.

But what makes Cape Town such a unique place and espe­cially fab­ulous for a party? Well, Lonely Planet only hints at the pos­sib­il­it­ies when they sug­gest one could “lux­uri­ate on some of the world's best beaches by day and kick back under the moon­light at suave cock­tail bars by night”.

Whilst on hol­i­day in Cape Town or if you are lucky enough to reside here, as I am, we are for­tu­nate enough to have a myriad of fant­astic places to visit and things to do dur­ing the day. Spend a lazy day on one of our beau­ti­ful beaches, take a walk through Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens or indulge in a dec­ad­ent lunch and some wine at one of the many wine estates in the area ... Continued

29 Blue Flag Beaches in South Africa

The new sea­son of Blue Flag South Africa was launched at Muizenberg beach in Cape Town yes­ter­day where it was announced that 29 of South Africa's beaches have achieved Blue Flag status — an increase from 19 to 29 this year ... Continued

Table Mountain Tops Everest

Table Mountain

Table Mountain is one step closer to being named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. South Africa’s iconic moun­tain, and its only offi­cial nom­inee, has been voted as one of the top 77 sites selec­ted from over 261 par­ti­cipants from around the globe, it was announced yes­ter­day by the New7Wonders found­a­tion, Thursday July 9, 2009.

The much-loved land­mark beat fel­low cat­egory con­tenders Mount Everest, K2 and Mount Fiji in round two of the inter­na­tional com­pet­i­tion that relied solely on votes from the pub­lic. Table Mountain needed to be ranked in the top 11 of its cat­egory — moun­tains and vol­ca­noes. Other cat­egor­ies include sea­scapes, lakes, islands, ice form­a­tions, water­falls and forests. “We are thrilled at the enorm­ous level of sup­port and votes from the cit­izens of South Africa as well as from fans around the globe,” said Sabine Lehmann, CEO of Table Mountain Cableway, who formed an offi­cial sup­port­ing com­mit­tee to pro­mote Table Mountain as a nom­inee. Continued

Oscar Win for South African Film

Tsotsi

Tsotsi, the South African film about a Johannesburg Shantytown thug won the Oscar for best for­eign lan­guage film on Sunday, mak­ing it the first film from the coun­try to win the award.

The film which was dir­ec­ted and writ­ten by South African Gavin Hood fea­tures a sear­ing per­form­ance by Presley Chweneyagae a gun-toting grown up AIDS orphan, who becomes an emo­tion­ally dead gang­ster until he learns the value of human life when he is forced to care for a baby he has mis­takenly kidnapped.

"We may have for­eign lan­guage films, but our stor­ies are the same as your stor­ies. They are about the human heart and emo­tion," said the film dir­ector Gavin Hood. Continued

Condé Nast Travellers' Choice Awards

At the 18^th annual Condé Nast Traveller Readers' Choice Awards held in New York last week, Cape Town was voted 'Best City in Africa and the Middle East'. Nearly 28,000 trav­el­lers voted this year mak­ing it the the highest response rate from trav­el­lers ever. The sur­vey asked read­ers to rate cit­ies such as Sydney, New York and Rome and to score them on a num­ber of cri­teria includ­ing ambi­ence, friend­li­ness, cul­ture, attrac­tions, res­taur­ants, accom­mod­a­tion and shopping.

The Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Nomaindia Mfeketo, said that the people of Cape Town were the driv­ing force behind this recog­ni­tion: "Congratulations and thank you to all in the tour­ism industry for this achieve­ment. This pres­ti­gi­ous accol­ade is a testi­mony to the city’s wel­com­ing and hos­pit­able char­ac­ter, and a mani­fest­a­tion of how the City works for its people." Continued

South Africa Shines at Travel Awards

Travelers once again ranked South Africa among the top tour­ist des­tin­a­tions in the world.

At The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph’s annual Travel Awards, South Africa once again dom­in­ated, lead­ing in both the des­tin­a­tions and hos­pit­al­ity categories.

Cape Town took top hon­ours as the best for­eign city in the world beat­ing Sydney, Venice, Florence and San Francisco and other major cit­ies for the top spot.

South Africa was voted the third best hol­i­day des­tin­a­tion in the world beat­ing Italy, Australia and other top des­tin­a­tions. The Cape Grace Hotel, situ­ated at Cape Town's pop­u­lar V&A Waterfront, was rated the fifth best hotel in the world. Continued