20 guides to Cape Town

Two full days, one mountain, one peninsula drive and roughly R2,500 per person in entry fees, food and transport if you plan the order properly.

Seven days split as four in the city, two in the Winelands and one on the whale coast, with a realistic all-in spend of about R12,000 per person excluding flights.

Three days of mountain, coast and city for around R1,800 a person in fees, food and transport, by hiking what other people ride and eating where Capetonians actually eat.

The same three days done properly: helicopter over the Twelve Apostles, private guide on the peninsula and two of the world's top 50 restaurants, for roughly R25,000 a head.

Fifty kilometres and 45 minutes east of the city, South Africa's second-oldest town packs 150 wine farms, a university and the best Cape Dutch street in the country into one very drinkable day.

Seventy-five kilometres from the city, a one-street Huguenot village in a mountain cul-de-sac with the country's densest concentration of top restaurants and a R310 tram that lets you drink all day.

A 120km run over the mountains to the world's best land-based whale watching, where between June and November southern rights come within 20 metres of a free clifftop path.

Forty kilometres down the False Bay coast, a Victorian naval village with a penguin colony, warm swimming water and a R25 train ride that runs along the waterline for half the journey.

A 145km drive up the R27 to a whitewashed fishing village with black mussels, a lighthouse, a world-ranked foraging restaurant and, in August and September, a national park carpeted in wildflowers.

A neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood breakdown of eight areas, with realistic nightly rates from R320 for a dorm bed to R6,000 for a Camps Bay sea view in January.

Cape Town has four genuinely different seasons and a 50 percent swing in room rates between them. Here is what each month actually delivers, from the February southeaster to the R900 winter guesthouse.

MyCiTi buses from R11.60, Ubers under R100, a Southern Line train to the penguins and a hire car from R400 a day — how to combine them without wasting money or time.

What a coffee, a taxi and a steak actually cost, plus the six tipping situations that trip up visitors — from the 10 percent restaurant standard to the R5 car guard.

Cape Town has real crime and a mostly uneventful tourist experience. Here are the 10 specific habits — and the emergency numbers, starting with 10111 — that keep the two apart.

Twelve dishes that define eating in the Cape — bobotie, snoek, gatsby, bunny chow, malva pudding — with the specific kitchens that do each one properly, from R15 samoosas to a R495 tasting.

Ten markets worth your Saturday, from the R50 boerewors roll at Oranjezicht to the Friday-night live music at Bay Harbour — with opening hours, addresses and what to actually eat at each.

Thirty-plus places where a full meal costs less than R150, from R70 thalis at Eastern Food Bazaar to a R95 box of hake and chips on the rocks at Hout Bay.

Cape Town charges hard for its headline attractions, but at least 20 of its best hours cost nothing. Here is a full week of promenades, summits, gardens and gallery nights that never open a wallet.

Cape Town has at least six distinct night-out neighbourhoods, and only two of them are the ones tourists get funnelled into. Here is what to drink, where, what it costs, and which strips to walk straight past.

Cape Town faces west into the Atlantic, which means roughly 300 usable sunsets a year. These are the 12 best places to watch one, with timings, parking, wind notes and what each costs.