I've done a lot of sunrise hikes. This is the one I'd send someone to first.

Why this one over Table Mountain

Table Mountain is the postcard, but Lion's Head is the better hike — and a far better sunrise. Three reasons:

• It's quick. Roughly 45 minutes up if you're moving, so a pre-dawn start doesn't cost you the whole morning.
• You're on the skyline, not above it. From the summit you see Table Mountain, the city bowl, Camps Bay, and the ocean all at once.
• The scramble is genuinely fun. There are chains and a couple of ladder sections near the top. Nothing technical, but enough to make it feel earned.

Go on a clear morning near the full moon and you won't even need a headlamp for the lower half. The trail glows.

What to actually bring

Keep it light, but don't skip these:

1. A real headlamp — not your phone torch. You want both hands on the chains.
2. A layer. It's warm in the city and cold on an exposed summit at 6am.
3. Water, but less than you think for a hike this short.
4. Grippy shoes. The sandstone is polished smooth in the scramble sections.

Timing it

Check sunrise for the day and start about 75 minutes before. That leaves time for the climb, a few minutes to find a good perch away from the crowd at the true summit, and the slow build as the light comes up over the Hottentots Holland mountains to the east.

The descent, in daylight, is a different hike entirely — you finally see the fynbos and the drop-offs you climbed past in the dark. Take the contour path around if your knees prefer it.

If you do one thing your first morning in Cape Town, do this.

Haneda (HND)

Haneda is closer to the city and, increasingly, where you want to be. The international terminal punches above its weight.

• JAL Sakura Lounge — the benchmark. Sushi made to order, a quiet cabin, and showers that are actually clean at 6am. Worth arriving early for.
• Cathay Pacific Lounge — smaller, calmer, and the noodle bar is a genuine reason to show up hungry.

If you're connecting through Haneda with a long layover, you will not suffer.

Narita (NRT)

Narita is further out and older, but a few rooms still make the trek worth it.

1. JAL First Class Lounge — if you can get in, the teppanyaki counter is the best food I've had airside anywhere.
2. ANA Suite Lounge — spacious, great tarmac views, strong for actually getting work done before a long-haul.

The rest are fine. Fine is not why you read a lounge review.

The honest verdict

If you have a choice of airport, fly Haneda. If you're stuck with Narita, make the layover long enough to earn the lounge you're eligible for.

Either way: shower first, eat second, work third. In that order, every time.

So I keep a log. Not a diary — a log. There's a difference.

What goes in it

Structured, skimmable, and fast to write while I'm actually moving:

• Route — flights, trains, the drive that took twice as long as promised.
• Stays — where, and the one-line verdict I'd give a friend.
• Meals worth repeating — name, neighborhood, what to order.
• Impressions — three or four sentences, written the same day, before the edges soften.

That last one is the whole point. The logistics I could reconstruct. The feel of a place evaporates within about 48 hours.

The rules that make it stick

1. Same day or it doesn't happen. I write on the train, in the lounge, in the ten minutes before dinner.
2. Bullet points beat paragraphs. A log you'll actually keep beats a beautiful one you abandon in week two.
3. One structured field, one free field. Facts I can query later; feeling I can only capture now.

The goal isn't a travelogue anyone else reads. It's a version of the trip that survives you forgetting it.

This is, not coincidentally, the same instinct behind a lot of what I build — give the messy, memorable stuff enough structure that it's still there when you come looking. Turns out that's as true for a weekend in Rome as it is for a photo library.