Robben Island, Cape Town

As one of South Africa’s most famous historical landmarks, Robben Island is a name that you're probably already familiar with. Those of you who have read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom will be more clued up than those who haven’t, because this is where the world’s most renowned freedom fighter spent an incredible 18 of his 27 years incarcerated years. And beyond that, the island has over 500 years worth of stories to tell – get comfy because Robben Island is a journey into South Africa’s history. 

Before becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, the island’s three centuries as a prison site were only really broken up by its short stint at homing a leper colony. 

It was the Dutch that first noticed Robben Island’s potential as an offshore spot to ship convicts to, and by 1671 it was an official prison station. When the Cape came under British rule in 1806, they continued the practice as laid out by their predecessors, but in 1843 it was decided that the prisoners would be of better use on the mainland – where they could be used for manual labour – so the island became an asylum for the “mentally ill”. Conditions were brutal and in 1931, when the cruelty of the segregation conditions were finally realised, “patients” were allowed back to Cape Town to be treated. 

Once the leper colony was vacated, the island spent a short while as a WWII military outpost before being returned to a prison again in 1961. It’s this period, during South Africa’s apartheid, that Robben Island is most notorious for. Amongst the island’s high profile political prisoners held here at this time was, of course, the legendary Nelson Mandela, who would later go on to become South Africa’s first black president.