Camps Bay is Cape Town’s glamour beach, and the place the city comes to watch the sun go down. It’s a wide arc of white sand backed by palm trees, fifteen minutes from the centre on the Atlantic seaboard, with the jagged peaks of the Twelve Apostles rising straight behind it and the open ocean in front. Across the road runs a strip of restaurants and cocktail bars that is as much the point as the sand. This is Cape Town at its most polished and most photogenic, and for a sundowner with a view, there’s nowhere quite like it.
Set your expectations for the water, though. This is the cold Atlantic side, around 12 to 16 degrees, so Camps Bay is a beach for paddling, sunbathing and posing rather than long swims. If you want to get properly wet, there’s a tidal pool at the southern end for a sheltered dip, and the warmer beaches of False Bay are a better bet for actual swimming. The beach is at its best in the late afternoon and evening, when the wind tends to drop and the light turns gold; the midday south-easter can whip the open sand and send everyone to the sheltered terraces of the strip.
The way to do Camps Bay is to give it the end of a day. Spend the afternoon on the sand, then cross to the strip for a sundowner as the Apostles glow pink and the sea turns to fire, and stay on for dinner if the budget stretches, because this is the priciest beach scene in the city. It links naturally with the scenic Atlantic seaboard drive toward Hout Bay and Chapman’s Peak, so make it the sunset finale of a coastal afternoon. If you’re looking at where to stay rather than where to watch the sunset, our Camps Bay and Sea Point hotel page covers the lodgings; this is the beach and the experience.
