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WG211/M25Schedule

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IFIP Working Group 2.11, Twenty-fifth Meeting

December 2-5, 2025, Stellenbosch, South Africa

The meeting will be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, hosted by Bernd Fischer. The meeting is planned for 3.5 days, with a half day on December 5. More details, program, and registration information will be appearing on this page in the next few weeks.

Venue

The meeting will be held at the Wallenberg Center of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (Streetview). This is to the east of the Stellenbosch University Campus (Campus map). Most B&B's, hotels, and restaurants are within 10-15mins walk.

Note that STIAS doesn't serve breakfast before the meeting starts, but that should be covered by your B&B.

Group excursion

Please let me know if you are interested in an organized post-meeting full-day group excursion. The "classic" tour is Boulder's Beach for penguin watching, and Cape of Good Hope; other alternatives are Table Mountain, Cape Town Aquarium, or Robben Island (the apartheid-era prison).

Registration

NOTE: this is still preliminary. Registration fees will be around USD 350 / EUR 300; this will cover all lunches on the meeting days and the dinners Tuesday - Thursday. Additional dinner tickets for partners will be USD 175 / EUR 150.

Members attending

Please add your name to the following list (alphabetical by last name, please) if you are planning to attend the meeting.

  • Jacques Carette
  • Sebastian Erdweg
  • Bernd Fischer
  • Ohad Kammar
  • Julia Lawall
  • Klaus Ostermann
  • Ulrik Pagh Schultz Lundquist
  • Sven-Bodo Scholz ? (TBC)
  • Friedrich Steimann
  • Eric Van Wyk
  • Jeremy Yallop

Guests and Observers

  • Shraddha Barke
  • Cezary Kaliszyk
  • Yuito Murase (as proxy of Atsushi Igarashi)
  • Moeketsi Raselimo (local observer)
  • Michel Steuwer

Talks and Schedule

TBD.

Travel

Note that the meeting will be in the southern Summer, just before the local holiday season starts in earnest, and Stellenbosch (and all of South Africa) will be getting busy, so arrange your flights and accommodation early.

Visa Information

Visitors from most EU countries, US, Canada, Japan, Australia and most of South America don't need a visa to visit South Africa. The complete (official) list is available at the Department of Home Affairs. Please contact Bernd Fischer if you need a visa to visit South Africa; please note that applications can take substantial amounts of time to get processed (although the backlog has been cleaned up after the last election...)

Vaccinations and Prophylaxis

South Africa requires yellow fever vaccinations for travelers arriving from a risk area; this includes most of South America and Central Africa, but excludes Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania. You should probably have up-to-date standard vaccinations (such as tetanus) as you would have for travel in Europe or North America. Malaria prophylaxis is only required if you go to Kruger National Park or Victoria Falls.

The medical system is very good around Stellenbosch, but sometimes less so in other parts of the country. Check with your (travel) insurance whether they cover your trip.

Getting to Stellenbosch

The closest airport to Stellenbosch is Cape Town International (CPT / FACT). There are direct flights from London (Virgin, BA), Amsterdam (KLM), Paris (Air France), Frankfurt (Condor, Lufthansa), Munich (Lufthansa), Zuerich (Edelweiss), Istanbul (Turkish Airlines), Doha (Qatar Airways), Dubai (Emirates), Addis Ababa (Ethiopian), Washington (United), Newark (United), Atlanta (Delta), and Singapore (Singapore Airlines). Note that some of these flights are seasonal and operate only during the southern Summer, so they might not show up yet. There are also regional connections to many places in southern Africa (e.g., Windhoek).

Further connections (e.g., from India, East Asia, Australia, or South America) are available with a transfer in Johannesburg. I recommend to fly into Cape Town, if feasible, because the transfer in Johannesburg requires you to clear immigration and customs (like in the US), which can be a bit unpredictable.

Flight prices vary of course wildly. I have recently paid anything between EUR 700 and 1200 for a Germany round trip, and EUR 1500 for a California round trip.

CPT is about 35km from Stellenbosch; there is no public transport, but Uber is widely available, cheap (< EUR 20 to Stellenbosch), and I always take it. Please be aware that taxi touts will try to talk you into a metered taxi as soon as you leave customs; I always politely ignore them.

If you prefer a pre-booked airport shuttle, try:

Stellenbosch is small and easily navigable by foot, and the venue is in walking distance to most hotels and B&Bs. You won't need a rental car unless you are planning to go on a road-trip before or after the conference. There is no public transport in Stellenbosch; do *not* take the train to Cape Town, or a minibus taxi.

Accommodation

Stellenbosch does not have big corporate hotels but offers a wide variety of different smaller accommodation options. Most centrally located B&Bs (look for the "Stellenbosch Central" or "Mostertsdrift" areas) will be in the range from EUR 80 to EUR 150 per night; there are also Airbnb-style accommodations but they tend to be more in the suburbs, and are not necessarily cheaper. Many wine farms offer luxury accommodation, but they are typically out of town and require a rental car.

Below are a number of guest houses covering different price ranges. Note that I haven't stayed in any of these... Please make your own arrangements and please note that places begin to fill up.

Between Stias and the town center:

Mostertsdrift (east of Stias):

Town center:

Security

South Africa has a reputation as an unsafe country but most crimes happen in township areas, and the center of Stellenbosch is generally safe; walking around town, or from town to the guesthouses in Mostertsdrift is fine, even after dinner. However, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Do not flash your valuables (phone, wallet, camera) in public.
  • Do not hand over your ATM/credit card - servers will bring a machine to your table (or will ask you to pay at the counter); if you withdraw money from an ATM, check that nobody is lurking around, and do not accept "help" from people.
  • Do not walk or drive into any township (in Stellenbosch, that means Kayamandi and Cloetesville); if you are interested, you can book guided tours.
  • Do not take the train between Cape Town and Stellenbosch (or trains around Cape Town).

Weather

Early December is late spring in South Africa. The weather in Stellenbosch should be nice - the average day-time highs are around 25C, night-time lows around 15C, and it should be dry. However, there are chances of an early heat wave, with temperatures above 30C, or (fortunately less likely) a late rain front with temperatures dropping by 5-10 degrees.

Pre- / post-meeting excursions

Here are a few ideas if you are planning to spend a few extra days in Stellenbosch or travel around the country:

  • Spend the weekend in Cape Town and explore the city - Table Mountain is certainly a prime target. You could also go to Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden (although the prime bloom will be over then), and even climb Table Mountain from there (although this could be hot and strenuous that time of the year). Cape Town has quite a lot of night life, especially on the weekend.
  • Explore the Stellenbosch surroundings. For this, you should probably get a rental car. There are literally hundreds of wine farms in the surroundings, if you want to go for a tasting. The Paarl Taal Monument (monument to the Afrikaans language) is an interesting cultural experience, and you can go on to the Paarl rock (large granite Boulder). Franschhoeck is a another cute town.
  • Get out to the Cederberg Mountains - a nice mountainous area about 2-3hours north of Cape Town, with nice mountain walks (Wolfberg Cracks, some caves). You could stay at Clanwilliam, or look for a place in the mountain reserve (look for Algeria). The roads are mostly dirt (ie unpaved) but we have driven them in a Polo...
  • Hike the Bosmanskloof Traverse (either as an overnight hike, or as a day-hike), staying in McGregor or Grayton.
  • Go to Calitzdorp for Port tasting, Oudtshoorn for the ostriches (and the very tourist-trappy Cango Caves, a huge limestone cave), and drive some of the "poorts" (ie old Mountain passes), like Swartbergpass into Prince Albert, a quaint Karoo town.
  • Go shark cage diving in Struisbaai.

Except for the Cape Town weekend, most trips will require a rental car. You can get an uber or a dedicated driver for a wine tasting tour, which is probably a smart idea in the first place...

Safaris. There are no lions running around in Stellenbosch ;-). The closest ones are at the Drakenstein Lion Park, which is basically a retirement home for lions. There are a few private game reserves within two to three hours drive of Stellenbosch (e.g., Sanbona), but they are not cheap. The closest National Parks with substantial wildlife are Mountain Zebra NP and Addo Elephant NP (about 8-10hrs drive from Stellenbosch, but Addo is quite close to Port Elizabeth, which is one hour by plane from Cape Town). If you plan to visit Krueger NP you should probably fly with a stop-over in Johannesburg, and plan on at least four extra days.

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