By Michael Youngblood
My girlfriend, who’s been to 44 countries, isn’t on social media, and is more likely to read a novel than the internet’s opinions of things, asked me this morning:
“Why does Cape Town make a great Unsettled destination?”
She wasn’t asking why it’s beautiful or why it’s fun.
She was asking something deeper:
What is it about Cape Town that pulls people out of a mundane drift of daily routine and into that Unsettled space where possibility opens up again?
And the answer, honestly, is simple:
Cape Town has always been a hub of change. It’s a crossroads.
A place where influence, creativity, and reinvention circulate as freely.
Environment matters — more than we like to admit. So do the people we surround ourselves with.
Cape Town, perhaps more than anywhere else we go, places you inside a living laboratory for perspective, change, and self-expression. Its history, geography, and cultural DNA will it to be so.
If the goal of an Unsettled experience is to replace your routine with something that wakes you up — something that gives you the perspective you’ve been missing — then Cape Town is as close to perfect as it gets.
A City Built for Perspective
Close your eyes. Think of your favorite city.
Now stretch it upward with a mountain that drops straight into an ocean.
Add a coastline where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.
Add sunsets that set the horizon on fire.
Add trails where 20 minutes of hiking gives you more clarity than 20 months of “thinking about making a change.”
That’s Cape Town.
You are never far from the sea. You’re always in view of the mountains.
Everything around you shouts…
Change is everywhere. You’re no longer thinking about it from your static office back home — you’re standing in the middle of it.
The geography does half the work for us.
A Global City with an African Soul
Cape Town works because it gives you contrast, and contrast gives you clarity.
Walk a single street, and you’ll find..
– A tiny café run by someone who can tell you their life story over one espresso
– A world-class museum unpacking the complexities of South Africa’s past
– A street market buzzing with creativity, youth, and global influence
– Artists, activists, surfers, entrepreneurs, and chefs — each representing a different angle on what meaning looks like here
Cape Town somehow manages to pull it off; it’s both fully African and global.
It’s easy to navigate, but impossible to take for granted.
Vibrant, layered, honest, beautiful — and always asking you to engage with its past and its present.
And that matters. Places that make you think also make you grow.
Comfort, Left Unchecked, Calcifies Things
We tend to live comfortable lives in comfortable places. As we should.
But comfort, left unchecked, calcifies things: whether or not we are growing, evolving, and how we show up in the world.
Cape Town interrupts that.
It stops you in your tracks and shows you there are infinite ways to live, to create, to express yourself, to be fully alive.
Cape Town is the part of you that’s been waiting to break pattern —
your inner misfit, your rawest, most expressive self, finally stepping forward.
And that’s why it’s the perfect Unsettled destination.
Because we’re not just dropping you into a cool city.
We’re hosting workshops, conversations, reflections, and community inside this backdrop — using this environment to help you see your life differently.
Cape Town opens you up.
It invites you to pay attention to the perspective you’ve been ignoring.
Are You Ready to Be Unsettled?
The real question isn’t whether Cape Town is a “good destination.”
The real question is whether you’re ready for a place that:
– pulls you out of your routine,
– puts you in conversation with people and ideas you’d never encounter back home,
– and hands you enough perspective to actually hear your own inner compass again.
Unsettled Cape Town will welcome you, but if you let it, it will also change you.
Unsettled is a global community for those who live and work differently.
Growth | Meaning | Adventure
