Meandering Through Mpumalanga: The Panorama Route
In December, the Blogitects embarked on an 11-day journey across Mpumalanga province (with a brief interlude in Eswatini). We spent the first few days in the southern half of the Panorama Route. Thorsten standing by the river next to the Lisbon Eco Lodge, where we...
Sunday Morning at 44 Stanley Avenue
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house? The entrance to 44 Stanley Avenue. I guess it's wrong to say I've never blogged about 44 Stanley; I've mentioned it countless...
Photos From Braamfontein’s Indwe Park
I've been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I'm finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on...
My Top 5 Moments in the Great State of Maine
Given this week's political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I'm hoping you've have had enough of the U.S. election horror show -- I know I have -- and...
Four Years of the Blogitects
I was planning to blog about something else today -- I've been traveling in the U.S. and haven't posted for weeks and I have a ton of travel content to catch up on. But this week marks the four-year anniversary of the day I met Thorsten, the other half of the...
Americans in Joburg: Why We Vote
In 2020, I published a blog post with tips for Americans living in South Africa who wanted to vote in the U.S. presidential election. I thought about simply resharing that post this year. But then I realized: 1) I want to write a U.S. election post that will be fun...
Hidden Joburg: The Home of Edoardo Villa
A couple of years ago I started a "Hidden Joburg" series -- a quest to visit all 28 places in the book Hidden Johannesburg, by Paul Duncan and Alain Proust. Then I got sidetracked. I published my last Hidden Joburg post in December 2022. But finally, almost two years...
Jozi People: Sipho Mackenzie, Fashion Pioneer
I recently bumped into Sipho Mackenzie at a party. Although we'd met a few months before, I was so dazzled by Sipho's look (the youngsters would call it a lewk) that I couldn't immediately place him. Sipho, who had been relatively dressed down at our first meeting,...
Clivias in Bloom at Random Harvest Indigenous Nursery
A few days ago, during a fit of low motivation, I asked my Instagram followers to suggest potential topics for Joburg-related blog posts. Thank you again to everyone who submitted suggestions -- you made my week! I received more than 30 viable ideas and found it hard...
Mtunzini: A Beachy, Foresty Place in the Shade
Our recent visit to St. Lucia was a stop along the way to the final destination of our KwaZulu-Natal road trip: Mtunzini, a coastal town off the N2 highway, where we spent five days hanging out on near-empty beaches and wandering through tropical forests. A kilometer...
Two Days in St. Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal
St. Lucia, the tourist town along South Africa's northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) coast -- not to be confused with St. Lucia the Caribbean island -- has near-mythical status among South Africans. The town is completely surrounded by iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South...
Afro-Latin Flavors (and Fun) at Artüro in Melville
Artüro, a new-ish restaurant on 7th Street in Melville, appears Mexican at first glance. As someone who is always on the lookout for Mexican food in Joburg, I was excited to check out Artüro after spotting a photo of a platter of tacos on the "I Love Melville"...
Stuurmansfontein: A Corbelled House in the Great Karoo
It was a blustery winter afternoon on my 50th birthday. The Blogitects were headed to Stuurmansfontein, an iconic corbelled house in the middle of the Great Karoo, and I was super excited. But the sun was sinking fast and I was also starting to freak out. Thorsten was...
The Blogitects Roadtrip to Augrabies Falls
As mentioned previously, Thorsten and I (a.k.a. "the Blogitects": one blogger + one architect) recently got back from a roadtrip to the Northern Cape to celebrate my 50th birthday. I had never properly explored the Northern Cape, South Africa's largest and least...
Heather Mason
I’m an American writer/blogger/photographer living a quirky life in Johannesburg. Follow along as I explore Johannesburg, South Africa, and the rest of the world.