South Africa · Western Cape · Cape Town
Camps Bay, Cape Town — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Camps Bay is an affluent seaside suburb on Cape Town's Atlantic Seaboard, strung along the western edge of the Cape Peninsula. The beach is the draw. Its wide band of white sand faces the open ocean, backed by the steep buttresses of the Twelve Apostles that close off the suburb from the city behind. Victoria Road runs the length of the shore, lined with restaurants and bars.
About Camps Bay
Where to stay in Camps Bay
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Camps Bay is a beach base. Staying here puts you on the sand and the Victoria Road restaurant strip, with the Twelve Apostles rising behind the houses and the open Atlantic in front. Beds run to expensive villas, apartments, and guesthouses on the slopes, so it suits sea views and sunsets over budget travel. Clifton's coves lie a short walk or drive north.
The City Bowl, with the city's museums and nightlife, is a fifteen-minute drive over Kloof Nek, so stay closer to town if you want to sightsee on foot.
About Camps Bay
What are the main landmarks in Camps Bay?
The beach is the main sight, a wide arc of white sand fringed with palms and backed by the Victoria Road promenade. Above it the Twelve Apostles rise in a row of grey buttresses, part of the Table Mountain range. Rock pools bracket the sand: Maiden's Cove toward Clifton in the north, and the granite boulders of Bakoven to the south.
Glen Beach draws surfers into the corner below Clifton. The appeal here is landscape, not monuments.
What is the history of Camps Bay?
The suburb takes its name from Kamps Baai, after an early settler, Von Kamptz, whose family held land around the bay. Its founding dates to 1713. For a while it was even considered as a harbour for Cape Town, though the open Atlantic swell ruled that out.
Farming and fishing slowly gave way to seaside houses once roads were cut around the mountain, and the suburb filled the narrow shelf between beach and buttresses. It grew into one of the ten suburbs of the Atlantic Seaboard.
Where is Camps Bay?
Camps Bay lies on the Atlantic side of the Cape Peninsula, reached from the city centre by the road over Kloof Nek. Behind it, the Twelve Apostles form the western face of the Table Mountain range and cut the suburb off from the City Bowl. Victoria Road threads along the shore, running north toward Clifton and south past Bakoven.
The beach faces due west.
More areas in Cape Town
Updated July 2026