Getting Around Johannesburg, South Africa

The city of Johannesburg is the largest in the Republic of South Africa. The Johannesburg Oliver Tambo International Airport is the busiest in the country, and home to South African Airways. There is airline service to many parts of the world, plus frequent domestic flights on discount airlines such as Kulula, which can be booked online. The Lanseria airport near Sandton to the northwest of Johannesburg has some domestic airline service.

When renting a car at Tambo Airport about eighteen miles northeast of downtown, get one with a GPS system as maps may be out of date. All car rental companies are across from the domestic terminal at Tambo Airport. If taking a taxi, make sure it is a late-model metered cab used by the largest taxi companies.

There are shared-ride mini-buses which run along fixed routes. The public Metrobus system radiates from Gandhi Square in Downtown Johannesburg. The N3 road is an orbital highway circling Johannesburg which now has a flyover going into the Tambo Airport, thus alleviating congestion at the Gillooly's interchange, which is the busiest intersection in the country. Several freeways converge in Downtown Johannesburg.

Several bus companies provide service between Johannesburg and Kruger National Park, with Greyhound and Intercape luxury bus service the most prominent on this popular run that takes about seven hours.

There is now a rapid rail system called the Gautrain, which runs between Sandton and Tambo Airport that takes about fifteen minutes. Fare on the Gautrain can be paid using a reloadable Gold card. More stations are planned for the expanding Gautrain network, including at Downtown Johannesburg, Rosebank, Pretoria, Centurion, and Midrank.

The Metrorail Gauteng commuter rail system connects the southern townships such as Soweto with Park Station in Downtown Johannesburg, from where trains depart for Cape Town and other cities throughout the Republic of South Africa.