The hook
South Africa's biggest, rawest city, where the story of apartheid and the struggle against it is told with unflinching power, and where, just outside town, caves have yielded some of the richest evidence of human origins on earth.
01Why it's worth it
Johannesburg, born from gold and grown into the country's economic engine, is not conventionally pretty, but it is where modern South Africa's hardest and most important history lives. The superb Apartheid Museum lays out the rise and fall of the system with rare honesty, and a visit to Soweto, the township that was the crucible of resistance, taking in the modest house where Nelson Mandela lived and the Hector Pieterson memorial to the 1976 student uprising, is deeply moving and best done with a local guide. On a very different timescale, the Cradle of Humankind, a complex of limestone caves an hour from the city, has produced an extraordinary share of the world's early hominin fossils, including famous finds like "Mrs Ples" and "Little Foot," with an excellent visitor centre. Joburg requires normal big-city caution, but it rewards travellers who want to understand the country rather than just photograph its wildlife.
02How to experience it
Give the Apartheid Museum a serious couple of hours and tour Soweto with a local guide for the struggle history. Head out to the Cradle of Humankind's caves and Maropeng centre for human origins. Use normal urban safety sense, and treat the history with the weight it deserves.