Namib Sand Sea is the only coastal desert in the world that includes extensive dune fields influenced by fog. Covering an area of over three million hectares and a buffer zone of 899,500 hectares, the site is composed of two dune systems.
Namibia: An 18-Day Itinerary
🗺️ Namibia: An 18-Day Itinerary
🚗 Getting Ourselves Organised — The Self-Drive Decision
When we sat down to plan our Namibia trip, we had a good long think about how we wanted to do it. The standard tour option was there, obviously, but we fairly quickly knocked that on the head. The appeal of a self-drive was too strong — the idea of being able to stop when we wanted, linger at a waterhole for as long as the elephants felt like showing up, and not have some bloke with a clipboard hustling us back onto a minibus. That said, we weren’t completely footloose. We had lodges booked in advance, so it wasn’t entirely off-piste, but within that framework we had real freedom of movement.
Now, a word about the roads, because this matters enormously. Namibia is not the M25. The main arteries between the larger towns — places like Windhoek, Rundu, and Katima Mulilo — are tarmacked and in decent nick. But the moment you leave those corridors and head into the wilderness areas, the game reserves and the national parks, you’re onto gravel, sand, and in some cases tracks that barely deserve the name road. A proper 4×4 is not optional — it is absolutely non-negotiable. We booked the whole tour through Onjamba Safaris, a Namibia-based operation who were genuinely brilliant to deal with. They sorted everything out for us. This was our first time on the African continent, and we’ll be honest — we didn’t have a clue what to expect, so having someone hold our hands through the planning stage was reassuring. That said, having now done the trip, we’re confident that you could easily organise it all yourself and have complete freedom of choice. Onjamba used a local vehicle outfitter called Desert Car Hire to supply our wheels, and they were utterly professional. The vehicle they gave us was a Toyota Fortuner — a big, capable beast that proved ideal for the conditions. When they delivered it to us, their representative spent a good chunk of time going through a very thorough briefing on the car, the kit it contained, and what to do if things went wrong. As first-timers to this kind of driving, we were extremely grateful for that.
🛒 Provisions, Petrol and the Peculiarities of the Road
One thing that genuinely catches people out in Namibia is the sheer scale of the country and the sparseness of its population. Namibia is roughly the size of France and Spain combined, and it has a population of only around three million people — most of whom appear to be concentrated in a handful of towns. In between? Vast, magnificent emptiness. Beautiful, but logistically demanding.
Namibia is in fact the second least densely populated country in the world, after Mongolia, with a population density of around three people per square kilometre. So if you’re used to nipping down the road to the local Tesco when you’ve forgotten something, you’re going to have to adjust your thinking fairly sharpish. The larger towns — Rundu, Grootfontein, Swakopmund, Mariental, Windhoek — all have supermarkets, typically a Spar or a Pick ‘n Pay, where you can stock up on everything you need. But once you leave those towns and enter the national parks and game reserves — which cover enormous areas of the country — you will find precisely nothing in the way of shops, and petrol stations are virtually non-existent, except at a handful of the higher-end resorts. We cannot stress this enough: fill your fuel tanks completely before entering any park, and carry additional petrol in large jerry cans. Running out of fuel in the middle of Etosha or the Palmwag Concession would be a very bad day indeed. Trust us on that one.
🛂 Our Starting Point — The Ngoma Border Crossing
We had the added complication that Namibia was not the beginning of our Africa adventure — we were on a broader tour of the continent, and we arrived from Botswana. Our particular entry point was the Ngoma border crossing, which brings you into what is known as Namibia’s Caprivi Strip — or, to use its more recent official name, the Zambezi Region, though everybody still calls it the Caprivi Strip, and frankly that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
The Caprivi Strip is a genuinely peculiar piece of geography — a narrow finger of land, only about 450 kilometres long and between 30 and 100 kilometres wide, sandwiched between Angola to the north, Botswana to the south, and with Zimbabwe and Zambia at its eastern tip. It was created by the 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty between Britain and Germany, as part of the colonial carve-up of southern Africa. The Germans negotiated the strip in order to give German South West Africa (as Namibia was then known) access to the Zambezi River, hoping this would provide a route to the Indian Ocean. It didn’t quite work out that way, because there happen to be the rather considerable Victoria Falls in the way, but the strip remains as a curious geographical legacy of colonial mapmaking.
We had a rental vehicle in Botswana, and taking a vehicle across an African border is apparently considerably more complicated than driving from France into Spain. There’s paperwork, insurance complications, cross-border fees, and all manner of bureaucratic theatre. We decided life was too short and changed vehicles at the border instead. A representative from Desert Car Hire met us at the Ngoma crossing, which was a very civilised arrangement, and then drove us 90 kilometres to Katima Mulilo, the largest town in the strip. There he handed over the keys, gave us another thorough rundown of the vehicle, and we were off — driving a further 110 kilometres to our first stop, Nkasa Lupala National Park. If you’re starting your Namibia trip fresh rather than coming overland from another country, the obvious and straightforward alternative is to fly into Windhoek’s Hosea Kutako International Airport and begin your adventure from the capital.
🏕️ Accommodation — Lodges Rather Than Tents
A quick word on how we chose to sleep. Namibia offers a full spectrum of accommodation, from proper luxury lodges right through to basic campsites where you pitch your own tent under the stars. Many self-drive travellers go the camping route, and they have their 4×4 kitted out with a rooftop tent, a full camp kitchen, and all the gubbins that goes with it. We chose not to go down that road, partly because the faff of setting up and breaking down camp every day didn’t appeal, and partly because we rather like a decent bed and a hot shower after a day in the dust. So we stayed in lodges throughout — though we did have one rather memorable night sleeping under the stars at Palmwag, which we’ll come to in due course.
In the itinerary below we’ve included links to more detailed blog posts for most of the locations we visited, with specific suggestions on where to stay and how to book. We’ve laid this out as an 18-day tour, but it’s entirely flexible. If you want to trim it down, the simplest approach is to start in Windhoek and skip the Caprivi Strip altogether, which would make this a perfectly manageable 14-day trip.
🐘 Day One — Nkasa Lupala National Park
We arrived at Nkasa Lupala National Park in the Caprivi Strip on a warm afternoon, and it set the tone for everything that was to follow. We were to spend our first two nights here, and it turned out to be a tremendous introduction to Namibian wildlife.
Nkasa Lupala National Park — also known as Nkasa Rupara, which can lead to a certain amount of confusion when looking at maps — is not a large park by Namibian standards. It covers only 320 square kilometres. But what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in ecological importance. It holds the distinction of being the largest wetland area with conservation status in the entire country, and it lies within the broader Okavango-Kwando-Cuando-Zambezi catchment system, one of the great freshwater systems of southern Africa. The park sits within the Linyanti-Kwando floodplains, and depending on the time of year you visit, large sections can be partially inundated, creating an extraordinary mosaic of reed beds, open water channels, palm islands, and seasonally flooded grassland. The park was first proclaimed as a game reserve in 1990 — the same year that Namibia achieved independence from South African administration — and was upgraded to national park status in 2012.
Arriving in the afternoon meant we could join the afternoon cruise along the Harubandi Channel, which forms part of the Kwando-Linyanti river system. It was absolutely magnificent. The banks were thick with wildlife — cape buffalo standing knee-deep in the shallows, hippos regarding us with their customary expression of profound suspicion, enormous Nile crocodiles draped on sandbanks like living logs, various species of antelope, and elephants. Lots and lots of elephants. Namibia has one of the largest elephant populations in Africa — around 23,000 by recent estimates — and a significant number of them appear to have taken up residence in the Caprivi Strip. The birdlife was equally extraordinary, with over 430 species recorded in the park, including African fish eagles, saddle-billed storks, carmine bee-eaters, and a bewildering variety of waterfowl.
Stay overnight at Nkasa Rupala Tented Lodge.
For a full review of Nkasa Lupala National Park see our Blog Post.
🌅 Day Two — Nkasa Lupala National Park
We were up before the sun on day two — the alarm going off at some ungodly hour so we could be ready for the 6 am dawn game drive. And before anyone starts grumbling about the early start, let us be very clear: it was absolutely worth it. Dawn game drives are one of the great pleasures of safari life, and not just because the wildlife is more active. There is something genuinely special about being out in the bush as the light changes — the air is cool and clear, the sky goes through a sequence of colours that no paint manufacturer has ever quite managed to replicate, and the sounds of the African morning are something you don’t forget in a hurry.
The reason for going early is straightforward enough. African wildlife — particularly the larger mammals — is largely crepuscular and nocturnal in habit. By the time the sun is properly up and the temperature starts climbing, most animals are looking for shade and conserving energy. In the cooler hours of early morning, however, they are out and active, feeding, drinking, and going about their business in a way that makes for excellent observation. Nkasa Lupala, with its mix of wetland and open grassland, was particularly rewarding at this hour. We saw lion tracks, though the lions themselves were being coy, and had a memorable encounter with a young bull elephant who took considerable exception to our presence and made his feelings known in no uncertain terms. After that brief but invigorating confrontation, we decided it was probably breakfast time.
In the afternoon, we had the option of another game drive, but elected instead to sit by the lodge with a cold drink and watch the river go by. Sometimes the right call is simply to relax. We stand by that decision.
Stay overnight at Nkasa Rupala Tented Lodge.
For a full review of Nkasa Lupala National Park see our Blog Post.
🏝️ Day Three — Ngepi Camp, Divundu
After breakfast on day three, we loaded up the Fortuner and set off westwards along the B8, heading for the small riverside settlement of Divundu and our rather eccentric overnight stop at Ngepi Camp. It was a journey of about 280 kilometres, which on a decent tarmacked road — which the B8 largely is — takes a relaxed and unhurried few hours, passing through a string of small Caprivi Strip villages along the way.
The Caprivi Strip’s villages are fascinating places to drive through, even at modest speed. The strip is home to several distinct ethnic groups — the Lozi, the Subia, the Mbukushu, and the Mafwe among others — each with their own language, traditions, and cultural identity. The villages typically consist of thatched mud-brick homesteads clustered together, with cattle, goats, and chickens wandering freely. Women carry remarkable loads on their heads with enviable effortlessness. Children wave at passing vehicles with tremendous enthusiasm. It’s an Africa that feels a very long way from the tourist brochures.
In the early afternoon we reached the Okavango River and the bridge at Divundu. The Okavango is one of the great rivers of southern Africa — rising in the highlands of Angola, it flows some 1,600 kilometres before emptying not into the sea but into the Kalahari Desert, forming the famous Okavango Delta in Botswana. At Divundu the river is broad, powerful, and a very particular shade of deep, chocolate brown. We followed it south to find Ngepi Camp.
Now, Ngepi Camp deserves a proper description. After leaving the tarmac, there was about three kilometres of dirt track to navigate before we arrived, guided by a series of frankly brilliant hand-painted signs that the owners had put up along the route. The signs were witty, self-deprecating, and increasingly creative as we got closer — someone clearly had a very well-developed sense of humour, which set the tone for the place perfectly. Ngepi itself is not what you’d call a conventional lodge. There’s no polished reception desk or attentive staff in matching uniforms. What you get instead is a ramshackle, wonderfully characterful camp — part backpacker bar, part bush kitchen, part collection of treehouses and bush huts perched on the banks of the Okavango. There are 20 campsites, three sites for overlander trucks, 14 treehouses, and three bush huts — 20 campsites and 14 treehouses being the sort of numbers that suggest this is a place that does things its own way.
The river here is about 300 metres wide and moving at a fair clip, coloured that distinctive chocolate brown by the sediment it carries from the Angolan highlands. It is also, needless to say, absolutely full of hippopotamuses and Nile crocodiles. Which makes the camp’s most celebrated feature all the more entertaining: a floating swimming pool, suspended in the river, enclosed by a wire mesh fence that theoretically — theoretically — prevents the aforementioned crocodiles from joining you for a swim. We gave it a go. We are still here to tell the tale.
Stay overnight at Ngepi Camp.
🌊 Day Four — Taranga Safari Lodge, Rundu
Day four was another transition day, pushing further westward along the B8 towards Etosha — the ultimate destination that was drawing us on like a particularly compelling magnet. The day’s target was the Taranga Safari Lodge, situated about 240 kilometres west near the town of Rundu.
The first 200 kilometres to Rundu took roughly three hours on the B8, which continues to be a well-maintained tarmacked road through the lush, green corridor of the Caprivi Strip. Rundu is the second-largest town in Namibia’s Kavango East Region and sits right on the Okavango River, which at this point forms the border with Angola. It’s a busy, functional town with a proper fuel station — essential — and a decent supermarket for restocking provisions. We topped up on both petrol and supplies before heading a short distance to the lodge.
The Taranga Safari Lodge, like Ngepi before it, sits on the bank of the Okavango River, though the atmosphere here is rather more polished. The rooms are genuine luxury safari tents — spacious, well-appointed, with proper beds and en-suite bathrooms, not the sort of thing you’d confuse with camping. The main lodge building has a well-appointed dining area, a pool, and a lounge with Wi-Fi, which felt almost shockingly civilised after the previous couple of days. The most striking aspect of the location, though, is what you’re looking at across the water: Angola. The country spent 27 years locked in one of Africa’s most brutal civil wars, from 1975 — when it gained independence from Portugal — right through to 2002. The conflict killed an estimated half a million people and displaced millions more. Sitting there on the terrace with a sundowner in hand, watching the sun go down over the far bank, you couldn’t help but reflect on how far that country has travelled.
🦁 Day Five — Onguma Bushcamp, Etosha
This was the day we headed for Etosha — the crown jewel of Namibia’s national park system, and one of the great wildlife destinations on the planet. We were going to spend our first two nights at the Onguma Bush Camp, which sits on a private reserve immediately adjacent to Etosha’s Von Lindequist (also referred to as Nematoni Von Lindquist) gate on the eastern boundary.
From Rundu, the drive was 370 kilometres on very good, well-maintained tarred roads — some of the best road surfaces we encountered in the whole country, which was a pleasant surprise. The one substantial settlement on the route was Grootfontein, about 270 kilometres from Rundu and home to around 24,000 people, which sounds modest enough but is actually a sizeable settlement by Namibian standards. It’s a pleasant enough town with a strong historical character — it was founded in 1885 as a fort by the Dorsland Trekkers, a group of Afrikaner farmers who were trekking north in search of new land. It subsequently became an important centre for the German colonial administration and has a number of interesting colonial-era buildings. We stopped there for a decent lunch.
Just 24 kilometres west of Grootfontein lies the Hoba Meteorite, which is worth a small detour if you’re that way inclined. It was discovered in 1920 by a local farmer who was ploughing his field and hit something rather harder than expected. At over 60 tonnes and composed principally of iron and nickel, it is the largest known meteorite on Earth and the largest naturally occurring mass of iron known to exist anywhere on the planet’s surface. It’s thought to have landed roughly 80,000 years ago, and it has never been moved because it’s simply too heavy. We didn’t actually stop — with 370 kilometres to cover, we kept moving — but the option is very much there.
The Onguma Game Reserve is a private reserve of some 34,000 hectares that shares a lengthy fence line with Etosha National Park to the west. It accommodates five lodges and two campsites, catering to a range of budgets and preferences. Its position makes it an excellent base for exploring the eastern sections of Etosha, and animals move freely between the two areas along certain corridors.
Stay overnight at Onguma Bush Camp.
See our full blog post on visiting the Etosha National Park.
🦒 Day Six — Etosha National Park & The Onguma Game Reserve
Day six was our first full day of proper game driving in and around Etosha, and it did not disappoint. We planned early morning and afternoon drives — the classic pattern that makes the most of the hours when animals are most active.
Etosha National Park is a genuinely extraordinary place. Established in 1907 by the German colonial governor Friedrich von Lindequist — which makes it one of the oldest game reserves in Africa — it covers some 22,269 square kilometres (that’s 8,598 square miles for those who prefer the old system), making it one of the largest national parks on the continent. At its heart is the Etosha Pan, a vast, flat, seasonally flooded salt pan that stretches for approximately 4,800 square kilometres and is clearly visible from space. The pan was formed over millions of years by the retreat of a vast shallow sea, and it now serves as a critical focal point for wildlife, particularly in the dry season when its scattered salt springs and artificial waterholes draw animals from enormous distances. The park holds one of the highest concentrations of big-game species in the world, including lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, both black and white rhinoceros, eland, gemsbok (oryx), zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, and springbok. The birdlife is equally staggering — flamingos gather on the pan in the wet season, and the park records over 340 species including vultures, hawks, eagles, ostriches, guinea fowl, and geese.
The eastern section of the park, which was our focus on this day, has a distinctly different character from the west. The vegetation here is tree savanna — a landscape of spreading acacias and tambouti (Spirostachys africana), a handsome deciduous tree that produces a dense, aromatic timber historically used for furniture and cabinet-making, along with wild fig trees and date palms. The contrast with the stark, almost lunar landscape of the western reaches is quite remarkable.
The Namutoni area in the eastern park also contains one of Etosha’s most historically interesting landmarks. The German colonial fort at Namutoni was originally constructed in 1901 as a police outpost to control the movement of cattle — and by extension people — in the region. It was besieged and destroyed in 1904 during the Ovambo rebellion, when a handful of German officers held off a force estimated at over 500 Ovambo warriors for several hours before eventually escaping. The fort was subsequently rebuilt between 1905 and 1907 in its current whitewashed form, which gives it an appearance that — as we noted in our original account — really does look like something out of a Beau Geste film. It now serves as a tourist camp within the park.
Stay overnight at Onguma Bush Camp.
See our full blog post on visiting the Etosha National Park.
🦓 Day Seven — South Etosha National Park
After breakfast we drove to the Von Lindequist Gate to pick up our park entry passes and began the day’s journey westwards through the heart of Etosha. It was 14 kilometres from the gate to Namutoni Camp — one of the three main rest camps inside the park — where we had a look at that extraordinary fort building up close, and topped up the fuel tank. You will notice that we are somewhat obsessive about fuel. In Etosha, this is entirely appropriate.
The plan for the day was to drive the central section of the park from east to west, exiting via the Anderson Gate on the southern perimeter, and overnighting at Taleni Etosha Village just outside the park. The distance was only 160 kilometres or so, which sounds entirely manageable until you factor in that the roads inside Etosha are gravel tracks, often corrugated and dusty, that demand patience and a willingness to stop frequently. And stopping frequently is exactly what you want to do — the whole point is to pull up at each waterhole and see what’s come to drink.
The landscape of Etosha in the dry season has a particular bleached, dusty quality that is initially striking and then gradually, as the day goes on, starts to feel slightly otherworldly. The pan shimmers in the distance, absolutely flat and utterly white. The vegetation is parched and grey-green. And yet the wildlife is everywhere. Zebra, giraffe, hartebeest, and springbok are common along the road. The oryx — known locally as gemsbok — are particularly well-suited to these harsh conditions. They can tolerate body temperatures up to 45°C without ill effect, essentially storing heat during the day and dissipating it at night, a physiological adaptation that is quite remarkable. The Etosha elephants are another highlight — they have a ghostly, almost unearthly appearance because they habitually dust-bathe in the white calcium deposits of the pan, coating themselves until they appear almost pale grey or cream-coloured in the distance.
We reached Halali Camp — the central rest camp — at roughly lunchtime. Halali was established in the 1960s and has a floodlit waterhole that is particularly productive for nocturnal game-watching. We had lunch in the camp restaurant, refuelled, and continued west. By late afternoon we reached Okaukuejo, the administrative headquarters of the park, which has another excellent waterhole — one of the most reliable in the whole park for black rhinoceros sightings. We topped up again and exited through the Anderson Gate, turning south a short distance to Taleni Etosha Village.
Stay overnight at Taleni Etosha Village.
See our full blog post on visiting the Etosha National Park.
🦅 Day Eight — West Etosha and Dolomite Camp
We re-entered Etosha through the Anderson Gate after breakfast and headed north and then westwards towards Dolomite Camp, our target for the night. This was the remote western section of the park — the least visited, the quietest, and in some ways the most atmospheric.
The western Etosha is dramatically different in character from the east and centre. The tree cover thins out considerably, replaced by low, scrubby bushes, sparse grass, and a landscape that in the dry season looks as though it has given up the ghost entirely. It is extraordinarily arid. The vegetation is dominated by what is known as thorn-shrub savanna, with some moringa trees — Moringa oleifera, sometimes called the miracle tree for its remarkable nutritional properties — scattered among the scrub. It takes a certain act of faith to believe that anything could live out here in any quantity. And yet.
The creatures you do spot in this western section have adapted to the harsh conditions in remarkable ways. Ostriches — the world’s largest birds, capable of running at up to 70 kilometres per hour — patrol the open ground with their slightly comical, purposeful gait. Bat-eared foxes, those delightful creatures with their enormous satellite-dish ears, pop up from the scrub. Hawks cruise the thermals overhead. We also visited the Olifantsrus Campsite, a relatively new facility in the remote western reaches that has been built around a two-storey hide overlooking a productive waterhole. The hide itself is accessed via a raised wooden walkway — very well designed — and the waterhole below attracts elephants with impressive regularity. Getting up to that elevated vantage point and watching elephants interact at close range, without a vehicle roof in the way, was one of the highlights of the entire trip.
Dolomite Camp, when we finally reached it, proved to be one of the most spectacular places we stayed in the whole of Namibia. Unlike the majority of Etosha, which is relentlessly flat, the area around Dolomite features a series of rocky hills rising above the plains. On top of one of these — Dolomite Hill — the National Park Service has constructed 20 luxury permanent tents, along with a restaurant, bar, and swimming pool. The camp is not accessible by private vehicle, so you park at the bottom and take an electric buggy up the hill, which adds a pleasingly theatrical quality to the arrival. The views from the hilltop as the sun goes down were, frankly, ridiculous.
Stay overnight at Dolomite Camp.
See our full blog post on visiting the Etosha National Park.
🏔️ Day Nine — Khowarib
Day nine was a long drive, and we knew it going in. We were leaving Etosha and heading for Khowarib Lodge, situated in the dramatic gorge country of the Khowarib Gorge in the Kunene Region. It was one of those days that is less about the destination and more about the journey — which, given the spectacular scenery we passed through, is actually no hardship whatsoever.
We exited Etosha through the Galton Gate on the western boundary — named after the British explorer Sir Francis Galton, who crossed this area in 1851 as part of his expedition into the interior of southern Africa — and picked up the C35, which had the considerable virtue of being tarred. This took us 70 kilometres south to the small town of Kamanjab. Kamanjab is not a place that will detain you long — it’s a functional, dusty little settlement — but it has a petrol station and a reasonably stocked shop, both of which are highly significant at this stage of the journey. We filled everything that could be filled.
From Kamanjab we turned onto the C40, which immediately surrenders its tarmac surface and becomes a gravel road heading into increasingly dramatic terrain. The next landmark was Palmwag, about 112 kilometres further on, reached by crossing the Grootberg Pass. The Grootberg Pass sits at 1,540 metres above sea level and offers what can only be described as extraordinary views down into the valleys below. The road to and across the pass is in genuinely poor condition — narrow, rough, and in places quite challenging — and a capable 4×4 is absolutely essential. This is not the place to be in a rented hatchback, however good your intentions. The scenery, though, is the reward for the effort: a vast, wild, rocky landscape of such scale and grandeur that it makes you feel appropriately small and humble.
Palmwag itself, when we finally wound our way down from the pass, proved to be a genuinely strange little place. It sits in one of the most remote corners of Namibia, deep in the Kunene Region, and consists of a small number of somewhat ramshackle buildings clustered together in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding Palmwag Concession Area is a vast communal conservancy covering around 450,000 hectares, supporting populations of desert-adapted elephant, black rhinoceros, lion, and the Hartmann’s mountain zebra, among others.
From Palmwag we headed north into the concession along a dusty but passable road, and after a couple of hours arrived at Khowarib Lodge, tucked into the stunning Khowarib Gorge. The gorge itself is carved through ancient Etendeka basalt, with dramatic reddish-brown cliffs rising on either side. The lodge has 14 luxury permanent tents, all within walking distance of a gorgeous central lodge building overlooking the gorge. We spent what remained of the afternoon doing precisely nothing, which felt very well-earned.
Stay overnight at Khowarib Lodge.
🐘 Day Ten — Desert Elephant Safari
If there is a single experience from our entire Namibia trip that stands out above all others, it is probably this: a full day in the Hoanib River valley, in search of the desert-adapted elephants that have made this extraordinary landscape their home. The Khowarib Lodge offers full-day safari drives into this area, and we would urge anyone visiting the region in the strongest possible terms to take them up on it.
The Hoanib River is an ephemeral river — meaning it only flows above ground during and after heavy rainfall, which is a relatively rare event in this part of the world. For most of the year it is a wide, sandy riverbed cutting through one of the most dramatic desert landscapes imaginable. The valley is flanked by mountains that glow copper and ochre in the morning light, and the vegetation along the river course is sparse and stunted — low-bowed trees with their roots stretching down through the sand to find moisture, scattered clumps of dry grass, the occasional desert-adapted euphorbia. The further you travel from the lodge, the fewer traces of human activity there are, until eventually there are none at all, and it feels as though you are genuinely at the end of the earth.
The desert-adapted elephants of north-west Namibia are not a genetically distinct sub-species — they are Loxodonta africana, the same African bush elephant found throughout sub-Saharan Africa. What makes them remarkable is the extent to which they have modified their behaviour and, to a degree, their physiology in response to the extreme conditions of the desert environment. They have considerably larger feet relative to body size, which helps them walk across soft sand without sinking. They travel enormous distances — sometimes 70 kilometres or more in a single day — in search of water, and they have an uncanny ability to locate subsurface water sources by smell, digging in apparently dry riverbeds to reach moisture several metres below the surface. Their population in north-west Namibia numbers only around 150–300 individuals, and they were heavily poached during Namibia’s independence war in the 1970s and 1980s, which reduced their numbers severely. Conservation efforts since independence have allowed a gradual recovery.
We were lucky enough to find them — a small group of perhaps eight or ten animals, moving slowly through the riverbed with that rolling, unhurried gait that elephants have, apparently utterly unbothered by our presence in the vehicle. Being this close to wild elephants in this landscape — no fences, no park infrastructure, just open desert and ancient mountains — was genuinely moving in a way that’s quite difficult to articulate.
Stay overnight at Khowarib Lodge.
See our full blog post on visiting Khowarib and Palmwag.
🌌 Day Eleven — Palmwag Under Canvas
We drove the 60 kilometres back south from Khowarib to Palmwag Lodge, which turns out to be a somewhat incongruous establishment given its setting. Where Palmwag the settlement is thoroughly ramshackle, Palmwag Lodge is modern, well-appointed, and looks rather as though it has been airlifted in from somewhere else entirely. We’re not particularly recommending it as a place to stay, but it served as the launchpad for the real attraction of the night — a genuine under-canvas sleep-out in the Palmwag Concession.
While waiting for our adventure to begin, we made use of the lodge’s facilities, which are perfectly pleasant. In the late afternoon, we set off for a drive around the concession — an extraordinary landscape of flat-topped Etendeka basalt mountains, dry riverbeds, and scattered desert vegetation. The Palmwag Concession is one of the most important conservancies in Namibia for the conservation of black rhinoceros, of which there are estimated to be around 100 in the area, making it one of the largest free-roaming black rhino populations in the world. Namibia is actually home to the majority of the world’s remaining black rhinoceros population — an astonishing conservation achievement given that the species was pushed to the very brink of extinction by poaching in the 1970s and 1980s.
The campsite for our overnight was extremely basic — four large two-person tents, well spaced from each other, with good quality mattresses and warm blankets. The toilet facilities were, shall we say, rustic. But that’s entirely beside the point. The evening involved sundowners as the sun dropped behind the mountains, a cookout around the fire, and then — as the night deepened and the temperature dropped — the sky put on the most extraordinary display. With absolutely no light pollution for many miles in any direction, the stars over the Palmwag Concession are indescribable. The Milky Way arched across the entire sky like a river of light, dense with stars that you simply never see from anywhere near a city. It was one of those moments of pure, uncomplicated joy that travel occasionally throws at you. We sat there for a very long time.
Stay overnight at Palmwag Under Canvas.
See our full blog post on visiting Khowarib and Palmwag.
DAY TWELVE – TWFELFONTEIN
🪨 Day Twelve — Twyfelfontein
The next stop on the journey was Twyfelfontein, home to one of Africa’s most remarkable and ancient collections of rock art and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007. The name “Twyfelfontein” is Afrikaans for “doubtful spring” — a reference to the intermittent and unreliable nature of the spring that rises nearby, which was first documented by European settlers in the area.
The journey south from Palmwag covers about 110 kilometres on gravel roads, with only a couple of short tarred sections to relieve the monotony, so it’s slow going. But the scenery more than compensates — the Kunene Region in this stretch is a landscape of extraordinary sculptural beauty, with hills and rock formations that have been eroded by wind and water into shapes that defy easy description. Table mountains, domes, pillars, arches — the land looks as though a very large and extremely creative sculptor has been at work for a few million years. Which, in a sense, is exactly what happened.
Leaving Palmwag in the late morning meant we arrived at Twyfelfontein in mid-afternoon — perfect timing, as the light was gentler and the temperature beginning to drop. Twyfelfontein contains one of the largest concentrations of rock engravings in Africa, with over 2,000 individual images documented across numerous sandstone outcrops in the area. The engravings are the work of San (Bushman) hunter-gatherers, who created them over a period of several thousand years, beginning around 6,000 years ago and continuing into the relatively recent past. The images include detailed representations of animals — lion, elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, oryx — as well as human figures, animal tracks, and various geometric and abstract symbols. The technique involved pecking or grinding into the surface of the sandstone to create the designs, which are now protected within a fenced and guided walking area.
The site has a powerful atmosphere — ancient, quiet, and slightly humbling. Standing in front of an image carved by a human hand six thousand years ago, in a landscape that has changed relatively little since, is a genuinely arresting experience.
Stay overnight at Twyfelfontein Adventure Camp.
See our full blog post on visiting Twyfelfontein.
🦭 Day Thirteen — Cape Cross & Swakopmund
An early start on day thirteen, because we had a packed itinerary. First stop was the Damara Living Museum, which opens at 8 am and runs guided demonstrations of traditional Damara culture, craftsmanship, and daily life that last around an hour. It’s one of those experiences that could easily be dismissed as touristy but is in fact anything but — the Damara people have one of the most linguistically distinctive languages in the world, characterised by an extraordinary system of click consonants (technically known as lateral, dental, and alveolar clicks) that are simply unlike anything else you’ll hear. Hearing it spoken at length, and having elements of it explained to you, is fascinating.
From Twyfelfontein we headed 350 kilometres towards the coast and the town of Swakopmund. Before turning south along the coast, however, we made a highly recommended detour — 50 kilometres north to Cape Cross. And the history of Cape Cross is rather more interesting than the name might suggest.
In 1481, King João II of Portugal initiated a systematic programme of exploration down the west coast of Africa, motivated by the ambition to find a sea route to India and the lucrative spice trade. He dispatched Diogo Cão — a nobleman and experienced navigator — to lead successive expeditions southwards beyond the point reached by any previous European. During his second voyage, which took place between 1484 and 1486, Cão reached Cape Cross in January 1486, becoming the first European to set foot on this part of the coast. He erected a stone cross — a padrão — to mark the Portuguese claim to the territory. The cross gave the cape its name. A replica of the original padrão now stands on the site; the original is in the Museum of Berlin. There is also a second, replica cross erected in 1893 by the German colonial administration, which itself has considerable historical interest.
The other reason — perhaps the more immediately visceral reason — for coming to Cape Cross is the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, which is home to one of the largest colonies of Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) in the world. At peak season, upward of 100,000 seals are present on the beach. The smell reaches you before the sight does, and the noise is something between a stadium full of football supporters and a very large, very enthusiastic argument. It is an extraordinary spectacle — the seals are simultaneously charming and alarming, graceful in the water and hilarious on land, and the pups are almost irresistibly appealing.
Driving back south towards Swakopmund along the Skeleton Coast is an experience in itself. The Skeleton Coast takes its name from the whale bones that once littered its beaches — the remnant of Namibia’s substantial 19th-century whaling industry — and from the hundreds of ships that have come to grief on this hazardous shoreline over the centuries. The combination of heavy fog (produced by the cold Benguela Current meeting the desert air), unpredictable swells, and an offshore diamond-field that historically attracted desperate treasure-seekers has produced an estimated 500 shipwrecks along this coast. One of the most visible is the Suiderkus, a fishing trawler that ran aground near Möwe Bay on her maiden voyage in 1976, despite — and this is the wonderful part — having a sophisticated modern navigational system. After several months most of the vessel disintegrated, but a substantial section of the hull survived and is now home to a colony of Cape cormorants.
Spend the night at Meike’s Guesthouse in Swakopmund.
See our full blog post on visiting Cape Cross.
DAY FOURTEEN – SWAKOPMUND
🏛️ Day Fourteen — Swakopmund
Swakopmund. What a peculiar and wonderful place. Situated on the Atlantic coast, where the Namib Desert meets the cold Benguela Current, it is a town that looks and feels unmistakably German — which is, historically speaking, precisely what it is.
Swakopmund was founded in 1892 by Curt von François, a German officer serving in German South West Africa, as the main port for the colony. It remained under German control until the First World War, when South African forces captured it in 1915. The colonial period left an indelible architectural mark — the town is full of late 19th and early 20th century German buildings, from the imposing Woermannhaus (1905) to the Art Nouveau train station (1901), from the old prison (1909) to the lighthouse (1902). Walking through the streets of Swakopmund is a mildly surreal experience, because the architecture, the Konditorei on the corner, the Germanic street names, and the slightly cool, foggy Atlantic climate conspire to make you feel as though you’ve been transplanted to a Bavarian seaside resort that has somehow ended up in Africa.
We spent the day wandering those streets at leisure — browsing shops, exploring the very fine Swakopmund Museum, which covers the natural and human history of the region in considerable depth, and having a look at the Mole, the curved sea wall that protects the harbour. The Kristal Galerie was another stop — a remarkable collection of enormous crystal formations, including some of the largest mineral specimens in the world, displayed in what amounts to a cave of geological wonders.
If the idea of a relaxing day exploring a fascinating town doesn’t quite cut it for the more adventurous among you, there are plenty of options in and around Swakopmund for getting the adrenaline going. The sand dunes of the Namib lie literally on the edge of town, and you can arrange quad-bike (ATV) rides and 4×4 dune driving experiences that are, by all accounts, excellent fun.
Spend a second night at Meike’s Guesthouse.
See our full blog post on visiting Swakopmund.
🌄 Day Fifteen — Sossusvlei
Leaving Swakopmund behind on the morning of day fifteen, we pointed the Fortuner south and inland towards one of the most iconic landscapes on the entire African continent — the great red dunes of the Namib Desert and the surreal white clay pans of Sossusvlei.
The route — the C14 — is a long gravel road that winds through some spectacular terrain on its way to Sesriem. The first major landmark is the Gaub Pass, then the Kuiseb Pass, and then the Kuiseb Canyon, reached about 180 kilometres into the journey. The Kuiseb River is an ephemeral river — dry for most of the year, its channel no more than a wide band of pale sand cutting through the canyon walls. It does, occasionally, flow after heavy rainfall, but it only ever reaches as far as Gobabeb before the desert swallows it. The canyon has its own claim to historical fame: it was the hiding place of two German geologists, Henno Martin and Hermann Korn, who spent almost three years living wild in the canyon during the Second World War to avoid internment. Martin later wrote about the experience in his book “Wenn es Krieg gibt, gehen wir in die Wüste” — “The Sheltering Desert” in its English translation — which remains a fascinating account of survival and resilience.
The geometry of the landscape changes dramatically south of the canyon, with mile after mile of rolling gravel plains gradually giving way to rocky outcrops and then, with increasing excitement, to the first glimpses of the great dunes.
We stopped at Solitaire, which has become something of a legendary waypoint for travellers on this route. Solitaire is barely a settlement in any conventional sense — a fuel station, a few buildings, and a bakery. But the bakery is the thing. More than two decades ago, a Scotsman named Percy “Moose” McGregor settled here and opened a bakery, producing various baked goods including a German apple pie — an Apfelstrudel made to an old family recipe — that became famous throughout the region. Moose died in 2012, but the bakery continues, and the apple pie remains. We had a piece. We can confirm it was excellent.
Shortly after Solitaire, we turned south on the C19 through the beautiful Naukluft Mountains — part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, which is the fourth-largest national park in the world at 49,768 square kilometres — before eventually turning off towards Sesriem and arriving at our accommodation for the next two nights, the Desert Camp. The cabins are simple concrete affairs — spartan but comfortable, with views across the mountain scenery, and perfectly suited to the purpose.
The Sesriem settlement has a fuel station. It also has beer. As far as we were concerned, the place had everything it needed.
Spend the night at Desert Camp in Sesriem.
See our full blog post on visiting Sossusvlei and Namib Sand Sea.
🏜️ Day Sixteen — Namib Sand Sea
A full day in the Namib Sand Sea. We had been looking forward to this since the planning stages, and it absolutely delivered.
The Namib Sand Sea was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013, and it fully deserves that status. It is a genuinely unique environment — the only coastal desert in the world that incorporates extensive dune fields influenced by fog, and one of the oldest deserts on Earth. The Namib is estimated to have been an arid or semi-arid environment for somewhere between 55 and 80 million years, which makes it the oldest desert on the planet. It covers more than three million hectares in total, with a buffer zone of 899,500 hectares, and comprises two distinct dune systems: an ancient, semi-consolidated system overlain by a younger, actively moving one. The sand itself is mostly derived from material transported thousands of kilometres from the interior of southern Africa by the Orange River and its tributaries, deposited at the coast, and then carried northward by ocean currents and inland by the prevailing south-westerly winds. The result is dunes of a reddish-orange colour — the hue coming from iron oxide — that can reach extraordinary heights.
We entered the Namib-Naukluft National Park through the Sesriem gate and drove along the single road that passes through the Sossusvlei area. “Sossusvlei” is a compound word of mixed origin: vlei is the Afrikaans word for a shallow, seasonal lake or marsh, while sossus is Nama for “no return” or “dead end” — so the whole thing means, roughly, “dead-end marsh.” This refers specifically to the terminus of the Tsauchab River, which disappears into the sand before reaching the sea.
The activities in this area are straightforward but very satisfying. Climbing the dunes is the obvious one. The most famous is Big Daddy, a magnificent star dune that at 325 metres is the tallest in the area and stands sentinel between Sossusvlei and the neighbouring Deadvlei pan. The climb is genuinely hard work — sand gives way under your feet, and what looks like a manageable slope at the bottom feels increasingly punishing halfway up. The more popular option for many visitors is Dune 45, so named because it sits at the 45-kilometre mark on the road from the Sesriem gate. Standing at 170 metres, it’s considerably smaller than Big Daddy but still offers excellent views, and its position makes it accessible early in the morning before the heat builds.
Deadvlei is the other essential destination — a white clay pan surrounded by towering dunes, scattered with the skeletal remains of ancient camel thorn trees (Vachellia erioloba). The pan was formed when the Tsauchab River flooded periodically and provided enough water for the trees to establish themselves. Then, sometime around 900 years ago, the climate shifted, the dunes encroached, and the river was cut off. The trees died, but the extreme aridity of the climate has prevented them from decomposing. They stand there still — black, twisted, ancient, utterly dead, against the white of the pan and the deep orange of the dunes and the impossibly blue sky above. The photographic opportunities are, frankly, obscene.
Spend a second night at Desert Camp in Sesriem.
See our full blog post on visiting Sossusvlei and Namib Sand Sea.
🐆 Day Seventeen — Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch
Day seventeen meant leaving the Namib Desert behind and crossing into a completely different landscape — the southern reaches of the Kalahari. The Kalahari is technically not a true desert, despite its name and reputation, because it receives considerably more rainfall than classic desert environments. It is more accurately described as a semi-arid sandy savanna, and in the right season it can actually be quite green. In September and October, however, which was when we were travelling, it is dry and golden and distinctly thirsty.
We left Sesriem and drove southwest on the C14 for 165 kilometres to Maltahohe — a small town with a fuel station and a coffee, both of which were welcome. From Maltahohe we continued on the C19 for 110 kilometres to Mariental, a larger town on the Fish River and the regional centre for the Hardap Region. The B1 from Mariental is, blissfully, a tarred road, and it carried us north for 45 kilometres to the Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch.
Bagatelle is one of the better-known private game ranches in southern Namibia, occupying a sizeable area of Kalahari scrub and red sand. It offers the standard lodge facilities — comfortable rooms, restaurant, pool — plus a range of activities. The most compelling of these is the cheetah feeding, which is exactly what it sounds like. The ranch rescues cheetahs that have come into conflict with livestock farmers — cheetahs are the primary target of farmer retaliatory killings in Namibia, which has had a devastating effect on the population — and the feeding session gives visitors the opportunity to observe these remarkable animals at close range. The speed and efficiency with which a cheetah dispatches and consumes a meal is, we can confirm, an experience that stays with you. Not a scrap was wasted. Not a morsel.
Spend the night at Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch.
See our full blog post on visiting Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch.
🌿 Day Eighteen — Windhoek
The final morning. We joined a walk with the resident Kalahari Bushmen guides — members of the San people, arguably the oldest culture on Earth, whose ancestors have lived in and around the Kalahari for at least 20,000 years, possibly considerably longer. The San were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa, and their traditional knowledge of the desert environment — of tracking, of finding water, of identifying edible plants and medicinal herbs — is quite staggering. The walk lasted perhaps an hour and a half and covered everything from how to set a small game trap to how to extract water from a desert root. It was, in the very best sense, humbling.
After breakfast, we drove the B1 north for 250 kilometres to Windhoek, the Namibian capital, where the tour officially ended. Windhoek is a pleasant, well-organised city of around 430,000 people, with a character that reflects its complex history — German colonial buildings alongside post-independence Namibian architecture, a cosmopolitan restaurant scene, and a general sense of a country that has made an impressive go of things since independence in 1990. It would make an excellent starting point, or a comfortable ending point, for any Namibia adventure.
The Best Time to Visit Namibia
Namibia’s climate is, on the whole, excellent — dry, warm, and largely predictable. It’s a country you can visit year-round, but the timing does make a difference to what you’ll experience.
The rainy season runs roughly from December through to March. These months are hot and can be humid, with afternoon thunderstorms — particularly in the north and east of the country. Temperatures in the desert can reach 40°C. The landscape is green and lush after the rains, and the birdwatching is particularly good, especially in the Caprivi Strip where over 450 species have been recorded and flamingos gather in their thousands on the lagoons around Swakopmund. The flip side is that game can be harder to spot when animals aren’t concentrated around waterholes.
April and May are genuinely lovely months — the rains have stopped, the landscape is still green, the air is clear and fresh, and the heat has moderated. If you’re going in May, it’s worth knowing that the winter is beginning, and while the days remain warm and pleasant, the nights start to get chilly.
June through August is winter proper. Days are clear and bright, with temperatures in the mid-20s°C and stunning blue skies. But the nights can be seriously cold — dropping below freezing in desert areas. Game viewing improves significantly as the landscape dries out and animals concentrate around the remaining water sources. Pack layers.
September is generally considered the optimum month for visiting — warm but not scorching, dry, clear, and with excellent game viewing as the dry season peaks. October is almost as good, though hotter and sometimes dusty. By November the heat is building, clouds start to gather in the afternoons, and the first rains can arrive at any point.
Namibia – Month-by-Month
Visiting Namibia in January
This is mid-summer in Namibia. It tends to be hot and humid, with maximum temperatures hitting around 30°C to 35°C (86°F to 95°F); reaching up to 40°C (104°F) in the desert. There may be torrential downpours in the afternoon, but not every day. Mornings are usually clear, with the rain falling in the late afternoon.
Events & Festivals
- Birdwatching in the Caprivi Strip (November to February): The Caprivi Strip is at its best during the summer months, when there are fantastic birdwatching opportunities, with more than 450 species
- Flamingos gather (November to February): The summer months are the best time to see a flamboyance of flamingos, where they gather on lagoons in their thousands in Swakopmund.
- Birdwatching in the Caprivi Strip (November to February): The Caprivi Strip is at its best during the summer months, when there are fantastic birdwatching opportunities, with more than 450 species
- Flamingos gather (November to February): The summer months are the best time to see a flamboyance of flamingos, where they gather on lagoons in their thousands in Swakopmund.
- Birdwatching in the Caprivi Strip (November to February): The Caprivi Strip is at its best during the summer months, when there are fantastic birdwatching opportunities, with more than 450 species recorded in the area..
- Flamingos gather (November to February): The summer months are the best time to see a flamboyance of flamingos, where they gather on lagoons in their thousands in Swakopmund.
- Birdwatching in the Caprivi Strip (November to February): The Caprivi Strip is at its best during the summer months, when there are fantastic birdwatching opportunities, with more than 450 species recorded in the area..
- Flamingos gather (November to February): The summer months are the best time to see a flamboyance of flamingos, where they gather on lagoons in their thousands in Swakopmund.
Visiting Visiting Namibia in February
Very similar to January, with hot, humid days and the chance of the occasional downpour in the afternoons..
Events & Festivals
Visiting Namibia in March
Rainfall starts to decrease and temperatures lower after the rains. The nights start to get cooler again, with temperatures falling to around 15°C (59°F), although during the day this rises to around 30°C (86°F), making for pleasant conditions.
Visiting Namibia in April
The rain should have stopped by April and daytime temperatures should drop to around 25°C (77°F). Expect lows of around 13°C (55°F) at night, although it can be cooler in the desert.
Visiting Namibia in May
May is the beginning of Namibia’s winter. There is little to no rainfall during the winter and humidity is low. Wildlife will start to gather around the waterholes when rivers and other water sources dry up.
Visiting Namibia in June
The nights are getting cold and temperatures can drop to below 10°C (50°F), while in the desert areas it can get to freezing. Daytime temperatures are pleasant however, with blue skies and temperatures in the mid-20°Cs (70°Fs).
Visiting Namibia in July – August
July and August are the main winter months. Be sure to pack warm clothing because game drives in open vehicles can be chilly. The maximum temperature is around 21-25°C (70-77°F). At night it will be around 7°C (45°F), but it can drop to below freezing in the desert.
Visiting Namibia in September
September is a lovely month and considered the best time to travel to Namibia. It isn’t yet too hot, but the humidity is still low, keeping it very pleasant. It is dry and the skies are clear.
Visiting Namibia in October
During October the green vegetation is fading and the heat gradually builds up. This is a very good time for game viewing because the country is so dry. Temperatures during the day can reach 29°C (84°F) and it gets even hotter in the desert.
Visiting Namibia in November
The heat continues to rise by November and it will be very hot; although humidity is still low. On average, daytime temperatures are above 30°C (86°F). Clouds start to build in the afternoon, bringing a chance of rain.
Events & Festivals
Visiting Namibia in December
The first rains usually arrive in December, and with it the temperature drops. The landscape changes after the first rains as everything comes to life, and the animals start to disperse as more water sources become available.
Events & Festivals
More to Explore
