Take the wine tram: https://winetram.co.za/

Most of vineyards have farm-to-table restaurants and cafes, desserts, and family friendly activities.

It’s been years since we went, but we thought Cape Town was great. We went to a vineyard (our youngest was late teens I think) and visiting a township with a guide—but other than that no private security.

OP here. Thanks! I didn't know about the chocolate tasting.

I was just about to say you could do the chocolate tasting for the teens. Stellenbach and Franschhoek are stunningly beautiful so I don't think it will be that boring for them to just sit there and take it in for an hour or so and then you're on to the next one. But I agree the Cape of good hope and table mountain would probably be more interesting to them.

I just went with teens and it was great. For wineries, check out Spier and add in the Segway tour and chocolate tasting for them while you do wine. Also agree with Boulders Beach and do Table Mountain, V and A waterfront and Cape of Good Hope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or kids were younger when we went (elementary school), they are teens now. The wineries we went to were family-friendly enough, but my now-teens would be bored. I'd take them instead to Table Mountain, Boulders Beach, or Cape Point.

Cape Town is definitely worth it, though!

Very helpful comment. I'm okay with our kids being bored for a few hours (I think its an important life skill to be bored and be okay with that). I love your suggestions for the beach and hiking. Did you hire an armed guard for those outings, or what did you do to ensure safety?

PP here. We did not, but this was almost ten years ago, I don't know the current state of security there.

We did stay in a gated hotel complex, and didn't spend a lot of time wandering around Cape Town. Mostly just drove between our hotel and the day trip destinations. Car doors locked the whole time and got directions from our hotel instead of just looking them up on a GPS, they told us what routes to avoid.

I'm sure there are safe parts of Cape Town and not-safe parts. With only a few days there, and young kids, we just took the hotel's advice and didn't explore a lot. We're not really city people anyway, so hiking and beaches and wineries were more our style.

Boulders Beach, Cape Point, and everywhere in between felt perfectly safe.