Meet Our Partners: Bheki Dube, Founder of Curiocity South Africa

by Jalisa Whitley | Dec 11, 2025 | Blogs

Meet Our Partners: Bheki Dube, Founder of Curiocity

Partnership is at the core of BOOKED Trips book-inspired experiences. We support local creatives, guides, and businesses on each our experiences. We’re excited to partner with CURIOCITY again for our April 16-26, 2026 trip to Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa inspired by Trevor Noah’s memoir “Born A Crime.”

CURIOCITY is a travel movement that connects local and international travelers, nomads, and groups with authentically original experiences that only Africa can provide. We got the chance to sit down with Bheki Dube, Founder and CEO of Curiocity Africa to learn a little bit more about him, his work, and his literary inspirations. Bheki started CURIOCITY in 2013 at the age of 21 in Johannesburg, South Africa and aims to grow CURIOCITY into the rest of the African continent, sharing original experiences of this continent one city at a time, while also unlocking entrepreneurial collaborations with emerging black youth wanting to make their mark in the hospitality & tourism industry in Africa.

Tell us a little bit about you and what inspired you to start Curiocity.

I started off as a tour guide at the age of 17 years and after traveling & backpacking across South Africa, I felt that the travel and lodging industry was very mom and pop run. It lacked inclusivity, experiences, and design-led concepts. On my journey back to Johannesburg, I felt that I wanted to create something of my own and that’s how the concept of CURIOCITY began in downtown Johannesburg in a neighborhood called Maboneng, which was going through massive urban regeneration efforts. From there the idea of scaling the product was born in 2013. CURIOCITY has become a massive travel movement, really connecting both locals and international travelers with what South Africa has to offer at a grassroots, authentic, and original level.

This will be the third time BOOKED Trips and Curiocity have worked together to design an experience in South Africa. What are you most excited for travelers to experience this time around?

I’ve really enjoyed our collaboration with BOOKED Trips, it’s brought in something very different and consciously disrupted how people should travel. What I’m excited about this time around is the guests really having to experience both Johannesburg and Cape Town, “a tale of two cities.” There’s a lot that’s grown in the literary scene and we’re able to connect guests with poets, entrepreneurs, writers, thinkers, and unpack a new layer of what the future of tourism and travel and South Africa looks like. In a world where everyone is at a fast pace, this particular curated trip, encourages the individual to SLOW down and connect at a deeper and more meaningful level than the mere tourist rubber-necking. I am looking forward to the conversations that will arise from this journey, some of the thought processes that will be sparked and the life-long impact of this journey.

At BOOKED Trips we bring travelers from the pages of some of our favorite books to the places they’re set in. What are some of your favorite books by South African writers?

I really enjoy poetry, and poetry has really influenced how I think, how I see myself in relation to the world.So I enjoy works by Lesego Rampolokeng his entire poetry collection. Dr. Uhuru Phalafala – Home Is Where The Music Is At. A powerful read is Tembeka Ngcukaitobi’s “The Land Is Ours.” Those are some of the books that have really influenced my thinking and way of being.

Describe your perfect weekend in Johannesburg. What are some of the underrated experiences you wish more people would have in the city? What about your perfect weekend in Cape Town?

In Johannesburg a slow start on a Friday, have really good coffee either at Home of the Bean in Maboneng or at Kohi in 44 Stanley, smash some work to finish off the week, stop by the FORGE in Braamfotein for some pan-African dialogues a sunset at BlackBrick Sandton 2 at Artistry. On a Saturday, you know, a day trip out to the NIROX Sculpture Park & FARMHOUSE58, probably one of the most important landscapes in the context of Johannesburg or the vaster Gauteng area. A slow Sunday, silent reading at CURIOCITY Johannesburg finish off with a Jazz night either at CURIOCITY or Untitled Basement.

No one works in Cape Town on a Friday hahaha particularly in summer. A day out on the beach is always really cool. There’s a massive vinyl community, there’s always vinyl DJs playing, whether you catch them at CURIOCITY Kloof Street or in other parts of Cape Town. Chimurenga always has great curated programs on a Friday evening. The food scene is out of this world. Saturday, start also very slow, do some errands, and then go to Oranjezicht Market for brunch, meet some friends, connect, either finish off at Neighborgoods Market, catch a sunset at [arriba] at the top of the new BlackBrick Gardens rooftop. Sundays, start with a game of tennis in the morning or a power hike on Kloof Nek Corner, have a morning cold plunge dip at Saunders Rock Pool and go gently into the good Sunday.

Looking ahead, what kind of journeys, literal or internal, are calling to you next?

That’s a good question. I am learning that there shouldn’t be a separation between work and the personal, it is all one’s life-long journey. At this stage of my life at 33 years old there is a deeper and more meaningful way into how I take my strides. We’ve constantly been looking always outward and saying, how do we conquer the world and I have learnt that at times you end up missing the next step right in front of you by always looking so far ahead. I am super conscious about the immediate steps. So for now, I am really staying true to the mission of growing the CURIOCITY movement across South Africa, and then in the medium into long term across the continent. I need to make sure that we running a well oiled machine before we embark on a global pan-African agenda.