My wife and I (retired couple in their 60s) are planning a one month trip to South Africa from Cape Town to Kruger in February 2019. While doing my research, I landed on the Canadian Travel Advice and Advisories website and saw this:
"SOUTH AFRICA - Exercise a high degree of caution in South Africa due to the significant level of serious crime."
How serious is this warning? Should we cancel our plan? Would it be safer to do a group tour?
Here's the link to Canadian Travel page: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/south-africa

I am in my 70s, so older than you. Just as in any large North American city, there are places less safe than others, but as tourists you probably wouldn't be going to them anyway. I have been to Cape Town twice in the past year, and have in-laws living there and in Joburg. None of them have ever had problems with personal safety. Like everywhere else, use your common sense.

In April I spent two weeks staying in Camps Bay, a beautiful Cape Town beach suburb, where we walked to dinner in the evenings with no worries. Several evenings we took Uber to the V&A Waterfront area, which is also very safe any time of the day, and has lots of good shops and restaurants. Incidentally, Uber in South Africa is very cheap, and we usually had response within three minutes. Many of the drivers waited to insure we were safely back in our Airbnb when dropping us off back home.

When in Cape Town you can go up the cable car to Table Mountain, see the penguins at Boulders Beach, take a trip to the winelands just outside the city, and lots more. I've never been to Kruger, but many people, including families, take self-drive tours around the park, staying overnight in rest areas. There are many upmarket safari lodges as well.

Yeah South Africa is generally safe if you stick to the tourist areas you should be fine. It is always important however that before you travel to any destination you check out your country travel advisory. This is also important if you intend on taking insurance to ensure that your travel insurance covers the destination you are traveling to as advisories can affect certain aspects of your insurance coverage, depending on your insurance company and the details of your plan. Some benefits are triggered by these advisories (as long as you meet certain conditions), while others are null and void if you choose to continue your travel in places with effective advisories.

You also need to know what the different levels of advisories mean. The same "Exercise a high degree of caution" advisory is given for the United Kingdom where I live. Would you be afraid to visit the UK? If the Canadian government felt it was unsafe to travel it would say "Avoid non-essential travel" or "Avoid all travel."
https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories

Thank you Heimdall for your reply. My wife and I are experienced travelers: South East Asia, Central Ameria, South America, Japan, France, Tunisia, etc. We always travel by ourselves. Tour groups are not our cup of tea. We did exercise caution in some of the countries we visited but we were always happy to meet the people and enjoy different cultures.I started this topic because it was a surprise for me to read the Canadian government warning for South Africa.

My wife and I decided to go ahead with our trip but after reading comments about the weather on this forum, instead of February, we decided to go in November. Do you suggest staying in a suburb (Camps Bay) to visit Cape Town and its surroundings? Could you please share your Airbnb information?

Thank you again!

Thank you safaritravelplus. I will check with my insurance.

I've never been to Cape Town in November, but have been in October and in December-January, plus March-April this year. November is the beginning of summer, so weather should be good in Cape Town. It does change from one day to the next, especially when the "Cape Doctor" winds blow in off the South Atlantic. October was still fairly cool, while temperatures in the Christmas - New Year's period were almost perfect.

Since you plan to visit both Cape Town and Kruger, be aware that weather patterns are opposite in the two regions. Winter is the rainy period in Cape Town, while further north they get their rain in the summer. Joburg is at about 6,000 ft altitude, so it doesn't get as hot there as you might imagine. Although I have been on safaris in other African countries, I can't advise when the best month would be for Kruger.

Musvin, I grew up in northern Wisconsin, and now live in England. As a matter of interest I read the travel advisories from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia to compare what they say. I have found Canada to have the most conservative advisories, closely followed by Australia.

Here is a quote from the UK travel advice: "The risk of violent crime to visitors travelling to the main tourist destinations is generally low. The South African authorities give high priority to protecting tourists and tourism police are deployed in several large towns."

You can read the full Safety and Security advice here: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-ad...y-and-security

Regarding Camps Bay, it is a beautiful beach suburb with lots of good restaurants, but most people feel it is a little out of the way for the main attractions of Cape Town. If you stay there you will find it necessary to either hire a car or use Uber quite a lot. The Table Mountain cable car station is actually very close to Camps Bay, and there is a hop-on-hop-off bus that stops there and takes you to all the main sights in the city. That's not everyone's cup of tea, but I find the hoho a good way to take in the sights, getting off whenever you like:
https://city-sightseeing.com/en/107/...-off-cape-town

The Airbnb we stayed at was very nice, with six bedrooms, a swimming pool, and a balcony overlooking the beach with beautiful sunsets every evening. We needed a large Airbnb for the 8 family members who came over from the US for my daughter's wedding. You will probably want something much smaller, which will also be cheaper.

Most people prefer to stay closer to the V&A Waterfront area, where it's easy to reach the city attractions. That's also where the ferries to Robben Island depart. We went to V&A numerous times during the trip for meals and to shop in the mall.

The Flickr album of my latest trip also has photos of the Inverdoorn Game Reserve 3 hrs from Cape Town in the Karoo. My family didn't have time to go to Kruger, so we took them to the game reserve to see some African animals. It's nowhere near as good as a proper game park, but they enjoyed the experience:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/heimda...57690316621650

<<"SOUTH AFRICA - Exercise a high degree of caution in South Africa due to the significant level of serious crime."
How serious is this warning? Should we cancel our plan? >>

Definitely not and am glad to see you are continuing to plan your trip.However I would not downplay such a warning especially for a first time visitor. I've been to South Africa at least 7 times, 2 for business trips lasting a month/6 weeks each time and the other times on vacation. I have family who have lived in Joburg and Cape Town for many decades. My daughter has visited on vacation 3/4 times and I think we would all say that the caution should be taken seriously. It cannot be compared to crime in the US or UK, it is a different type of crime..You'll notice electric fences around homes with armed response alarms which I don't see in the UK. The only incident I have experienced personally, was a group of youths who sat on the bonnet of our rental car when we stopped at traffic lights, asking for money. They got off when the lights turned green thankfully, but it was a bit scary. Keep car doors locked, when parking your rental car, you are often asked by a man if you want him to look after your car, I always accept and pay them a few rand when I get back to the car. We don't drive at night either except in and around Cape Town, Camps Bay and down to Hout Bay, definitely not in Joburg, not even in Sandton.

Despite this, I will always continue going to ZA and would absolutely encourage anyone to go. Cape Town is just spectacular, Camps Bay is beautiful, love the restaurants along the sea front, the beach is beautiful, the backdrop of the mountains is beautiful. If you think Camps Bay is a little too far out from Cape Town, we stayed in a suburb closer to CPT called Sea Point, in a gorgeous B&B owned by a Dutch couple (now closed it seems). It was walking distance to local (and great) restaurants and a very short drive to the V&A. You could walk to restaurants in this area at night quite safely. I ask owners about local safety and take their advice. I found October a bit too cool, Jan-Apr is very hot, I imagine November to be very pleasant but I have not been during that month.