Sea Point

On Beach Road at the Queens Beach end, an Olympic-length saltwater pool plus three smaller pools right against the Atlantic. Around R30 for adults, roughly 7am to 7pm in summer. Go before 9am for empty lanes; by noon on a hot Sunday it is a joyful, crowded family scene with music from the terrace.

Three kilometres of paved path from Sea Point Pavilion to the red-and-white Mouille Point lighthouse, no cars, no bicycles in the busy stretch. Public art along the way, mini-golf and a putt-putt course near Mouille Point, and Cafe Neo at the lighthouse end for coffee. In January the sun sets around 8.10pm.

Between Clarens and St Johns Road: Kleinsky's for a bagel and cream cheese under R100, Posticino for BYO Italian, La Mouette for a set menu around R500 in a courtyard off Regent, and Bihari for northern Indian. Bookings needed from Thursday to Sunday in December and January.

On the shoreline just below the Queens Beach end of the promenade, an internationally known geological site where granite intrudes into older Malmesbury shale. Charles Darwin examined it in 1836. A small plaque marks it; the boulders are the attraction, and it takes five minutes and costs nothing.

30 Regent Road, a covered market hall with around 30 food stalls, a bar, craft traders and live music most evenings, open from about 9am until late daily. Good rainy-day option, decent R90 bowls, and a rare place in Sea Point where you can eat at 10pm on a Tuesday.

At the Bantry Bay end of Beach Road, a small sheltered sandy cove with a shallow tidal pool that actually warms up on a still day. Best two hours either side of low tide. Free parking is scarce on the road above; walk the fifteen minutes from Sea Point Pavilion instead.

MyCiTi routes 106 and 107 link Civic Centre in the CBD to Sea Point along Main Road and Beach Road every fifteen to twenty minutes, roughly 12 to 18 minutes and R16 with a myconnect card, continuing to Camps Bay and Hout Bay. Minibus taxis run the same Main Road corridor constantly for about R12, shouting for town. From the airport, Uber or Bolt costs R320 to R450 and takes 30 to 50 minutes. Inside Sea Point you walk: the whole suburb is four streets wide and nothing on Regent Road is more than fifteen minutes from anything else. Street parking is metered on Main and Regent until about 6pm, free after, with car guards expecting R10 to R20.

Not really off the shoreline, which is granite boulders and cold Atlantic water at 12 to 15 degrees. Locals swim at the Sea Point Pavilion, a big outdoor saltwater pool complex on Beach Road costing about R30, and in the small sheltered coves at Milton, Rocklands and Saunders' Rocks at high summer low tide. For actual sand, Camps Bay and Clifton are ten to fifteen minutes away by car.

The promenade and Main and Regent Roads are busy and well lit until at least 10pm and people walk them normally. After that, use a car for anything more than a couple of blocks, and avoid the quiet side streets running up toward Signal Hill Road late at night. Phone snatching happens on the promenade at dusk in the emptier stretches; walk where other people are.

About 4 km, ten minutes by car, R70 to R100 in an Uber. Walking is realistic in daylight: 45 minutes along the promenade through Mouille Point to Granger Bay, one of the better urban walks in the country. MyCiTi 106 or 107 to Civic Centre and then 104 out to the Waterfront works for around R22 total but takes a good half hour with the change.

Yes, clearly, if you do not need beach frontage. Comparable rooms run R1,500 to R2,600 against R3,000 to R6,000 in Camps Bay in January, the restaurants are cheaper and more varied, and the bus service is far better. What you give up is sand outside the door and the sunset-strip scene. Many people stay in Sea Point and drive to Camps Bay for one evening.