Top tips for solo travel - with Janet Ellis

We caught up with author and broadcaster, Janet Ellis, to discover her key tips for solo travelling in South Africa after visiting with Just You.

Clothing

As you will be enjoying a game drive on this tour, neutral clothing is best so that it doesn’t disturb wildlife, plus it makes it much easier to mix and match your clothing.

A number of the hotels (usually the four-star ones) offered a laundry service which can work out at £5-£10 per item, but a few of us were glad of the option to have things laundered ready for the following day of adventure. Plus it also means you can save a little extra room for souvenirs rather than laundry and I’m all for that.

Don’t be afraid to mix, match and re- wear items either, it’s a holiday, not a catwalk and you can be seen more than once in the same outfit. And no matter where you’re visiting in the world, always pack a lightweight waterproof, you never know when you might need it. And no matter what the season is, pack a hat and sunscreen, South Africa is known to have more than one season in a day and Table Mountain was proof of that.

Take time to pause

It’s easy to forget ourselves in documenting every single moment on camera, without just putting our phone or camera at rest to actually engage our senses and take in the scenes before us. And nowhere will that be more apparent than on your game drive. In our excitement to capture things amidst the click-click-click of a shutter button, there’s something much more charming about doing nothing but engaging our eyes and ears.

So don’t feel guilty or think you’ll have the fear of missing out, it’s what the WhatsApp groups are for, so you can bet someone else got the million dollar shot while you were soaking up the ambience! Take it in turns with taking photos with your solo companions and really make the most of it.

Be yourself

When it’s your first solo tour, I think it’s natural that we all have that thought of what will everyone be like. I think what’s important to keep in mind is that everyone will be themselves and so you have the beauty of all sorts of people with their own different life stories that they want to, or won’t want to share.

There will be the folks that were going to bottle out of it, but forged on ahead and found their forgotten friend called confidence and really threw themselves into each and every experience.

There are those that perhaps don’t like the small talk of getting to know you, and don’t always want to dine as a big group – that’s great, it’s their choice. It’s all about choices, and as Just You says, it’s about holidays that allow you to be just you. And that’s perfect. So just be yourself, be kind to each other and allow people the space to do what they need to do to have a great holiday.

And there are some folks that find themselves reunited on another Just You tour by chance. Now some might think that this would affect the dynamic of the group, especially those that are new to Just You. But once you’ve travelled with Just You, it’s like gaining a little family, people are there to support, direct and share their experiences with each other.

So make the most of it, move around the group a bit and you’ll be sharing laughs and memories in no time.

Plan your free time and getting around

On a Classic Tour there are still pockets of free time to really go solo and go off and do your own thing. I love art, and some friends recommended I visit the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa at the V&A Waterfront, and we walked there from our drop off point in the centre of Cape Town.

The traffic light crossings are an interesting encounter so you have to quick smart across the roads, but it was great to spend some time wandering around some of the exhibits.

Three of us visited and were completely transfixed by one particular exhibit, Iyeza, an 11-minute dramatic video by Kudzanai Chiurai (part of the museum’s permanent collection until 2027). Iyeza means to ward off ill and evil and invite health and wellbeing and the exhibit explores how Christianity was used to support colonialism in South Africa, using the scene of the Last Supper as a backdrop.

We hotfooted it back to the hotel via an Uber, and while we weren’t at the gallery for very long, it’s just great to have your own mini adventures. And as well as just checking in with your Holiday Director to let them know where you’re heading off to, it’s nice to invite other members of the group to tag along too. Shared experiences but with different perspectives make for a much more enjoyable and engaging encounter.

Whether you’re into art, or something else, do your research and talk to your friends who have been to the likes of Cape Town and Johannesburg so you can craft your own unique take on the Rainbow Nation.

A word on currency, tips, spending and electronics

Like other countries I’ve travelled to, it can be a struggle to get notes changed into smaller denominations and coins. As a result, a lot of places you visit, even in rural locations, prefer to accept card transactions. At a push, if you don’t need a lot of change, they will accept cash but it’s worth preparing for both scenarios.

In terms of tips, we were advised by Just You that it is completely discretionary but we all chipped into collections for our drivers and our Holiday Director, Daryl. Generally they estimate £4 per day for your Holiday Director and £3 per day for drivers and guides. Again it is completely discretionary and you never feel pressured to contribute.

There a number of lunches and dinners which are not included in this trip, and food and drink is reasonably priced, depending on your food preferences of course. In our lodge a large glass of wine was around £2.50 and dinner out one evening set us back around £10 for a main meal, but of course it depends on where you’re dining and indeed popular tourist areas like the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town will incur a higher premium.

For a rough conversion 100 Rand is around £5 GBP so it’s a good rounded maths to work with when you travel. A member of the group printed a handy conversion chart for her purse which I thought was a great idea, especially if you’re out and about and don’t have wi-fi at your fingertips. Otherwise some other members of the group were using the free and aptly titled ‘Currency Converter’ app which works offline and you can refresh rates when you get back to your hotel for a more accurate daily reflection.

When it comes to adaptors, bear in mind that even if you have a worldwide adaptor, they don’t tend to cover off the rather bulky pins of the South African version. Plus, we found in some hotels that they do take UK plugs too, so it’s worth bringing both.