Joburg eclipses Cape Town as ‘cheap, sunny destination’
Chasing the sun? SA scored third in the top 10 cheapest destinations for travellers seeking sunshine, in a new global survey.
But before Capetonians get too smug — Cape Town was listed as the third best city in the world to live in last week — the destination named in the new research was Johannesburg, not the Mother City.
Johannesburg gets on average 9.1 hours of sunshine each day, amounting to 3,334 hours a year.
To rank cheap sunny destinations, the travel company ParkSleepFly calculated the hours of sunshine holiday destinations around the world get every day.
This was balanced against the average cost of staying in each place.
Top of the list of the was Tirana in Albania, north of Greece and much further from the warmongering Russia than other former communist countries.
Denpasar, the capital of the Indonesian island of Bali, was the runner-up, with Jozi grabbing third place.
A hotel per hour of sunshine in Albania’s capital costs R95 ($5.88), in Denpasar it is R110 ($6.78) and Johannesburg R130 ($8).
Only four other African countries made it into the list of 46 cheap, sunny destinations — Egypt (Cairo), Tanzania (Zanzibar), Morocco (Marrakesh) and Mauritius (Belle Mare).
ParkSleepFly is a popular source of travel information, yet its pitch about Johannesburg seems somewhat creative in calling it “one of the top sunny vacation destinations in the world”.
“With great weather all year round, Johannesburg is attracting millions of tourists every year for its climate, wildlife and culture,” the researchers said.
The average hotel price was listed as R1,190 ($73) per night.
Tirana was feted as the cultural and economic hub of Albania, described now as “a far cry from the grey buildings that once characterised the city”.
Bali’s Denpasar is a travel hub connecting island hotspots in Indonesia and gets about 8.6 hours of sunshine a day.
Many of the destinations listed are magnets to backpackers and shoestring travellers — for example, numbers nine and 10, Goa in India and Phuket in Thailand respectively.
For years, Thailand has been an affordable destinations for South Africans, given its favourable exchange rate, unlike several of SA’s neighbouring countries which charge dollars for safaris, for example, Botswana.
Surprisingly — given the strength of the euro to the rand — eating, drinking and being merry in a sunny European country such as Spain proved to be cheaper than in SA.
Unsurprisingly then, sunny and affordable Spain appears more often than any other country on the list — with seven destinations named.
Spain is also one of the most vaccinated countries against coronavirus in the world, with almost 85% of Spaniards having had their jabs.
To escape the winter (and load-shedding) blues, you will need to go further than Joburg.
Only four other African countries made it into the list of 46 cheap, sunny destinations — Egypt (Cairo), Tanzania (Zanzibar), Morocco (Marrakesh) and Mauritius (Belle Mare).