I’ve lived just outside Cape Town, South Africa for eight months now, having moved from Canada with my husband and young children. Technically, I’m an expat. Emotionally, I remain a tourist. Every outing is still an adventure; every day a small insight into Africa.

What does eight months of small insights add up to? The grand insight that South Africa is a very beautiful and very complex country. To my sensitive newcomer’s eyes, at least, there are social and political nuances here that stir constant awareness – of each place I visit, of how I treat each person I meet, of all I do as a mother and a traveler.

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Consider play for instance.

In Canada, my three boys (who are all under four years old) spent much of their playtime in public spaces around our home. Like many urban families, the neighborhood streets, lanes and parks were the building blocks of our social world.

Cape Town (and, I’m told, the rest of South Africa) is very family-friendly. Kids seem welcome and catered for almost everywhere. But while public playgrounds do exist, for example along the promenade at Sea Point, travelers with children will likely spend much more time in privatized play spaces. Security and public spending priorities are the main reasons, as far as I can tell.

There are plenty of such places to choose from: the aquarium, the zoo, and the museum are destinations listed in any tourist brochure. Less obvious but quite popular play areas are in garden centers, restaurants, cafes, pubs and wineries. Many of these businesses are well equipped with slides, jungle gyms, and swings so parents can shop for greenery or sip a cappuccino while their children play.

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We visited one such business shortly after arriving in South Africa. The Spier Wine Estate is located near Stellenbosch, in the heart of cape wine country. The estate makes and sells fine wine, of course, but also offers restaurants, a hotel, horse-back riding, golf, a cheetah rehab center, swimming and lots more activities for families.

Our ambitions were more modest: we went for a picnic.

Entrance to Spier’s picnic grounds is free and there’s plenty of open space and winding paths for running, tables for eating, jungle gyms for climbing and ducks for feeding. The catch: you can’t bring your own lunch. You’re required to buy pre-made picnics from Spier’s deli if you want to eat on site. But the exchange seems reasonable. You get a fun, safe, well-tended place to play and a tasty lunch. They get patrons.

In fact, everyone gets a whole lot more.

Spier is one of several tourist establishments accredited by Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA). The stamp means that businesses meet stringent criteria for fair wages and working conditions, ethical business practices and respect for human rights, culture and the environment. That’s a tall order that goes well beyond “ecotourism” to ensure that the local community benefits from tourist bucks.

And while I’m reluctant to turn my children’s playtime into a weighty political act, a certain degree of – dare I say – savvy, especially in a country like South Africa, seems to me like fair play.

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