Organized Tours

The following recommended operators all travel in comfortable minibus vehicles and cover the city's top attractions, like the Carlton Centre and the Apartheid Museum, with minor variations. Most are very flexible, so discuss the itinerary upfront to ensure your interests are covered -- art lovers may want to include a stop at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and a visit to the Origins Centre is definitely worth the extra hour or two (and additional charge) if you are interested in ancient South African culture. Call Max Maximum (tel. 011/938-8703), Moratiwa (tel. 011/869-6629), or Jimmy's (tel. 011/331-6109; www.face2face.co.za). If you want to visit Tshwane, Ulysses Tours & Safaris (tel. 012/663-4941; www.ulysses.co.za) conducts fine city tours, with excursions to sights such as the Cullinan Premier Diamond Mine and De Wildt Cheetah Park.

Recommended national operators for day or evening trips farther afield (Tshwane, Lesedi, Pilanesberg, Sun City, Kruger National Park) are Lords Travel & Tours (tel. 011/791-5494 or 083/381-1042, reservations 080/020-3861; www.lordstravel.co.za), Welcome Tourism Services (tel. 011/328-8050; www.welcome.co.za), and Springbok Atlas (tel. 011/396-1053; www.springbokatlas.com). Alternatively, check out the following specialized tours:

Cradle of Humankind Tours

Palaeo-Tours (tel. 011/726-8788; www.palaeotours.com; by arrangement only) offers fascinating trips to some of the key sites in what has become known as the Cradle of Humankind, declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 for the significant paleoanthropological discoveries made in the area since 1966. The Cradle again made headlines in 2003 when a new dating technique (called burial cosmogenic dating) revealed that the Little Foot skeleton, found in 1997, is 4.17 million years old -- one of the oldest in the world. Since the discovery, scientists have been hard at work excavating the full Little Foot skeleton. More recent developments have been banal: an "improved" visitor center and an unremarkable underground "museum." However, with Palaeo-Tours, your guides are paleoanthropology scientists or Ph.D. students who explain the history of evolution while taking you to working excavation sites. The area is some 20 minutes from the city, and tours comprise two site visits and usually last 5 hours; it may be a good idea to ask for the tour to be extended to include a game drive in the Cradle Game Reserve, where you may spot giraffes, rhinos, and a variety of antelope.

Township Tours

Popular with foreign visitors keen to experience "real" urban life, "township" tourism originated in Soweto. Township tours offer a fascinating insight into daily life in the segregated black neighborhoods constructed during the apartheid years and the remaining ubiquitous economic contrasts found in the City of Gold, like Alexandra, where an estimated 600,000 people live in abject poverty in a 19-sq.-km (7 1/2-square-mile) enclave, just across the highway from glitzy Sandton. Among the sights on Alex's "Heritage Trail" tour is the house Mandela lived in when he first came to Johannesburg and the headquarters of the Msomi gang, who terrorized the community in the late 1950s. To arrange a tour, contact the Alexandra Tourism Association at tel. 011/882-3406 or 011/882-0673. Somewhat more organized is the Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Trust (tel. 011/482-3349; Mon-Fri 9am-1pm), which varies its program throughout the year but offers excellent tours through Alexandra, Soweto, and other less-explored neighborhoods.

Tours of the Tshwane townships are not as commercialized as those to Soweto, but they can also be a little disorganized -- pick up the Moatwana brochure from the Tshwane Tourist Information Centre on Church Square (tel. 012/337-4337; Mon-Fri 8am-4pm) to find out more about these tours and operators.

Incidentally, the word township -- used to denote poor black suburbs -- dates back to 1912 and, while commonly used, should ideally be phased out; it's something you may want to discuss with your guide.

Mine Tours

Underground operational-mine tours are an edgy way of getting to grips with Africa's gold- and diamond-mining heritage. If you really want to get under Jo'burg's skin -- literally -- contact Daphne Rapodile (tel. 083/778-2577 or 011/498-7202), who should be able to get you on a visit along with an investment group. The tours are physically strenuous and can be psychologically stressful as well; under no circumstances should you attempt one if you are under 16, over 60, or at all claustrophobic. After being given a brief operational and geological overview of the mine in question, visitors are supplied with full underground gear. Keep in mind that conditions 2km (just over a mile) below the surface of the earth are humid and hot, and rock temperatures in working mines can reach 131°F (55°C). Even though refrigerated air is pumped through, air temperatures can exceed 90°F (32°C). After a 1- to 2-hour tour, visitors return to the shaft and shower (towels are supplied). The tour often ends with drinks and snacks, and costs around R750 to R950 ($106-$134/£54-£68) per person. (Note: If an operational-mine tour sounds too daunting, you can descend the historic No. 14 shaft at Gold Reef City.

If Daphne cannot assist, contact Byron of Cullinan Tourism & History (tel. 012/734-2170 or 082/936-6979); he runs underground tours of the famous Cullinan Premier Diamond Mine, 50km (31miles) east of Tshwane. One of the richest diamond mines in the world, Cullinan has, since 1902, yielded an average two million carats a year. Tours run Monday through Saturday, and are well worth the early start (8am most days), although if you prefer to sleep in, book for a Friday at 11am. The whole experience lasts under 5 hours and costs R400 ($57/£29). Alternatively, if you're more interested in learning about mining than actually going into the bowels of the earth, you could book a surface tour by calling the mine directly (tel. 012/734-0081; R50/$7/£3.60; no children under 10). The 2-hour surface-mine tour includes a video of the mining process, a look at the Cullinan Big Hole (40 hectares/99 acres in area and 500m/1,640 ft. deep), displays of uncut diamonds, as well as replicas of the world's most famous diamonds -- the Cullinan, Centenary, and Premier Rose were all unearthed here.

Specialist Walking Tours

Beryl Porter loves Jozi with a passion and has set about making its strange beauty more accessible to visitors with a wide selection of walking tours -- even glitzy Sandton fascinates her as she enthuses how (while walking to its key sites), within a mere 3 decades, it has been transformed from a sleepy suburb of cow-grazed tracts of land to the new financial center of the city. Personally, I'd opt for a tour of the city center and the nearby Newtown Cultural Precinct, or the derelict attractions of semi-seedy Kensington and Troyville and its predominantly Portuguese community (don't miss lunch at the Troyville Hotel, the best and most authentic Portuguese restaurant/bar in the city). Both of these tours last around 3 hours and cost a minimum of R500 ($71/£36) per person. Call Beryl at tel. 011/444-1639 or go to www.walktours.co.za.