Tourist guides to Cape Town are a dime a dozen, everyone offering their own ten cents worth as to how visitors to our shores should fill their days.

One young man, a certain Christopher Clark, wrote a piece for Huffington Post and had four helpful tips to make the most out of your visit. Bear in mind that Clark is in fact a Brit expat who moved here six years ago, which is perhaps why he doesn’t quite appreciate the historic significance of a visit to Robben Island.

Over to Mr Clark then:

Don’t. Do. It.

The Robben Island experience is over-priced, overdone and about as enjoyable as . . . well. . . going to prison.

I made the mistake of visiting the island after a particularly heavy night. Despite my hangover and some strange gurgling sounds from within, I was pretty much the only person on the rough ferry ride over that wasn’t sick.

Once on the grim island, we had a talk from a former apartheid-era prisoner who seemed to be yearning for a career change.

Then when I finally got my chance in Mandela’s cell, there were so many other visitors queuing up to get in behind me that I didn’t even have time to do the Matt Damon in Invictus impersonation that I had been planning for so long.

The whole thing was too forced to feel anything real.

And the truth is that for all his wonderful achievements, Mandela only constitutes a tiny part of the fascinating transnational history of Cape Town, so save some money and some time and rather visit the numerous worthwhile museums and exhibitions that can be found in and around the city centre.

Hmm, interesting. His three other suggestions, so you can see how out the box he likes to think, are ‘party in a township’, ‘hipster it up in Woodstock’ and ‘have a night out in Long Street’.

Good tips though, you would have struggled to find those suggestions anywhere else.

I guess it’s different strokes for different folks and there’s no harm in that, but write-ups like these are bound to irk a few locals. Take this guy in the comments section:

Well played Brian, you sound like the kind of bloke who may have spent more than a few years around these parts.

[source:huffingtonpost]