Lebo’s Soweto Backpackers

Lebo's Soweto Backpackers is a Fair Trade Tourism-certified backpackers lodge and campsite in Orlando West, Soweto, run out of the house where founder Lebo grew up. Lebo's own path into tourism began in the early 2000s selling crafts at the Hector Pieterson memorial; noticing that visitors wanted more than a bus-window view of the township, he began inviting them into his home, and that grassroots approach grew into the now well-known Soweto bicycle tour that the lodge is built around today.

The team is drawn almost entirely from Orlando West and the wider Soweto community, and guests consistently single out that welcome: "There was an instant community feel," writes one guest, and another, "I felt my mother's love, I was welcomed." Guided bicycle, walking and tuk-tuk tours move visitors out of the car and onto Soweto's streets, taking in Vilakazi Street and, on full-day routes, entry to Nelson Mandela House and the Hector Pieterson Museum, alongside storytelling, a food and cooking experience and group team-building activities.

Beyond the lodge, Lebo's runs a community park on a former dump site — complete with a soccer field and after-school programming — and partners with the Pack for a Purpose initiative, letting guests bring supplies for local projects. On site, accommodation ranges from shared dorms to private rooms and the separate Lebo-Land Campsite, with a self-catering kitchen, lounge and courtyard, and an outdoor restaurant serving potjiekos, curries, salad buffets and braai.