Our Home Away from Home in Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

A warm, welcoming and well-appointed family home in Camps Bay is our ‘home away from home’ in Cape Town, South Africa. The beautiful white-washed two-story villa has a well-equipped kitchen and a piano in the elegant yet cosy living room. Just a five-minute stroll from the gorgeous white-sand beach, with a swimming pool in the sunny garden, and gob-smacking views of Table Mountain, The Bay Leaf is a wonderful place to settle into for a while.

After 2.5 days of travel from Buenos Aires via Brazil and Dubai we were absolutely exhausted. So we were relieved that our home away from home in Cape Town, South Africa, a beautiful Camps Bay holiday house called The Bay Leaf, was supremely comfortable. In fact, it was one of the loveliest holiday rentals of our year-long global grand tour dedicated to slow travel, local travel and experiential travel, forms of travel we believe are more immersive, engaging and enriching.

And if you’ve been travelling along with us, you’ll know we’ve settled into some stunning holiday rentals so far. There was the charming Montmartre hideaway in Paris, a Grand Canal-side palazzo apartment in Venice, the tropical pool villa near Canggu in Bali set in lush gardens, a beautiful beach house in Costa Rica, a colourful casita in San Miguel de Allende, a sprawling penthouse in Mexico City, and sleek Palermo Soho apartment in Buenos Aires. Just to name a few.

This Camps Bay holiday rental with its breathtaking Table Mountain views is up there with the best. While the living area, separate TV room, and dining room feel intimate and cosy, the house is enormous with a big kitchen and, upstairs, four spacious bedrooms, each with a spotless bathroom. On the ground level there’s another apartment with kitchenette and snug hotel room-style studio, with private entrances to that of the main part of the house.

Our Home Away from Home in Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

We’re lucky to have this whole Camps Bay holiday rental to ourselves and as we’re cooking and working we appreciate all the space. However, you can rent the large house or two or three types of lodgings (different areas can be unlocked or locked off), or book the entire property, which would be perfect for a big family, family reunion, or group of friends keen for a relaxing holiday in Camps Bay.

To make us feel even more spoilt, The Bay Leaf comes with a jovial housekeeper called Mildred, with a personality as big, warm and welcoming as the house. I wanted to hug Mildred as soon as I met her! You can choose to have a full-time housekeeper and let Mildred potter around and clean up after you each day, bringing sunshine into the home with her on the cloudiest of days.

Or, if you prefer privacy, you can do as we did and let Mildred have a bit of a holiday and have her come just once or twice a week to do a proper clean. Mildred’s hours are negotiable, but you can take some comfort in knowing that she still gets paid as a full-time housekeeper, no matter what you decide.

If that’s not enough, The Bay Leaf’s terrific owners, Shirley and Keith Engers, are also on hand to help. Shirley runs the property and also acts as a virtual concierge. Shirley can organise your airport transfers, provide fantastic suggestions as to things to see and do in Cape Town, and places to drink and eat in Camps Bay, as well as organise excursions to the Winelands and beyond.

Shirley organised our radio interview about our Grantourismo project so we could get local tips from Cape Town residents on things we should do. Shirley also booked medical appointments for us for our shots for Kenya, our next destination for safaris to the Masai Mara and Tsavo West. Keith has a pretty important full-time job, however, the man still found time to email us tips and the weekly ‘What’s On’ newsletter.

The couple also offered us their theatre tickets that they couldn’t use, but unfortunately we couldn’t accept, as we were working after all. And as we’ve learnt so far on this trip, there’s only so much we can do without getting behind when it comes to publishing these posts. Which is why the posts we share on social media are sometimes ahead of these stories and guides. Sorry…

If you don’t wish to take advantage of these extras and want total privacy, then that’s fine too, just let the Engers know. You’ll manage perfectly fine with the shelves of tourist brochures and stacks of coffee table books and guidebooks on Cape Town and South Africa. There’s also a phone and fast internet access.

The Bay Leaf’s ‘Welcome Pack’ is one of the most impressive we’ve had in the many holiday rentals we’ve settled into on our 12-month global grand tour this year, after Rusty Irons’ pantry at our home away from home in Austin, Texas, of course, which was a virtual museum of local produce, and hard to beat.

There were enough goodies to get us started for breakfast, including tea, coffee, juice, delicious bread, yoghurt, eggs, milk, etc, as well as a bottle of local wine. There was even some homemade soup but that could have been because we arrived on a Sunday evening after a long journey, so don’t hold us to that being in the fridge when you arrive.

The Bay Tree’s kitchen is clearly much loved and well thought-out, so if you’re planning on eating in a lot, doing a Cape Malay cooking class in Bo Kaap (which you should), and practice making some of the dishes you learnt, or just doing some entertaining, you won’t want for anything.

This kitchen is jam-packed with every kind of baking tray, pot, pan, appliance, utensil, and gadget. There’s more than enough dinnerware, cups, glasses, cutlery, serving trays, and napkins. For Terence, the well-equipped kitchen was reason enough to make The Bay Leaf the perfect holiday home in Camps Bay.

You could very easily check in here with the intention of having a festive meal for extended family or holding a garden party, cocktail party or wedding brunch, and be confident that you have everything you’d need to pull the thing off. Mildred and Shirley, a former cooking teacher, would be your greatest assets. And knowing them, they’d probably help out!

Terence may well have been delighted with the kitchen, which he used to make some delicious Cape Malay curries during our stay, as well as the classic Cape Town stew called a tomato bredie, which he would end up sharing with you here. But, as a musician, Terence was over the moon with the piano, which he would end up playing most evenings while photo drives were downloading and images processing.

The music that Terence made would be my reward. There are few things sweeter than listening to a live recital of Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes Nr. 1, one of my all-time favourite pieces, as I sat at the dining table writing, sipping glasses of South African wine.

While the living area is spacious and elegant, with a mix of modern and antique furniture, South African artefacts and objects of art, a collection of silverware displayed, and lots of seats and sofas, as Shirley herself admits, it might be a little bit of squeeze if you rented the entire property for a large group of family and friends.

This wouldn’t worry a big family who are used to bunking together, and wouldn’t concern friends at all during good weather, as outside there are two sets of tables and chairs, a sofa, sun beds, and barbecue area. We’re in Cape Town after all. But the place could feel a bit crowded if there were ten or twelve people dining together inside. If some of the group are kids, then it won’t be a problem as there’s also seating in the kitchen.

Having said that, the bedrooms are big and comfortable, some with kitchenettes and table and chairs and comfy sofa seats, so if you needed a break from family and friends to simply relax with a good book and pot of tea, you could happily do that without feeling like you were trapped in your room.

The swimming pool is also a tad small, so it won’t suit fitness fanatics obsessed with doing laps everyday. But Camps Bay beach is literally five-minutes’ walk away. And the pool is perfectly fine for a dip to cool off on a warm day. Also, a few minutes stroll from the house is an excellent supermarket, shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants, which line the beach promenade.

The bedrooms are all very comfortable, fitted out with quality sheets and blankets, nice towels and toiletries in the big bathrooms, and televisions and DVD players. The master bedroom, which is where we slept during our stay, boasts a balcony with views of spectacular Table Mountain (from where Terence shot the time-lapse video I linked to above), and the owners have a walk-in wardrobe where they lock their personal things during your stay.

So this is where it must be said that Shirley and Keith actually live in the house when you’re not staying here, so if you choose to rent the whole house, they move into their daughter’s place close by before you check in. This is a real family home, which means you can feel good about the fact that you’re travelling responsibly, sustainably and ethically, and not taking away housing from locals.

And it’s a family home in the very best sense. If you want breakfast made for you, Shirley’s been known to do that too! If you want a family around? Shirley and Keith, their lovely daughter, and dogs Daisy and Lily, are just a phone call away. If we ever get back to Cape Town, we’ll have them over for dinner to thank them for the loveliest of stays.