Johannesburg is one of the most politically charged cities on earth, and if you give it three focused days, it will hand you a crash course in how a country dismantled institutionalised racism, rebuilt a constitutional democracy, and kept arguing — loudly, creatively — about what comes next. This itinerary is for curious travellers who want context alongside experience: people who read the history before they land and want the streets to confirm or complicate what they already think they know.

Start at the Apartheid Museum, which deserves a full morning rather than a rushed hour; its sequencing is deliberate and you should let it work on you. From there, a Soweto Township Tour grounds the abstract in the specific — streets, schools, shebeens — before you stand outside Mandela House on Vilakazi Street and let the sheer ordinariness of the building make its point. Day two belongs to the Constitutional Court, whose architecture is a manifesto in itself, and Liliesleaf Farm, where the Rivonia Trial plotters were arrested and whose quiet suburban setting still surprises people. Round that out with the Soweto Gold Mines Tour for the economic layer that underpins everything else. On your final morning, walk Melville Koppies to clear your head, then spend the afternoon between the Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Wits Museum before catching a performance at Soweto Theatre — a reminder that resistance and joy have always travelled together in this city.