Few countries, if any, can claim limitless horizons, stark landscapes, harsh environs, and untamed wilderness, complemented by rare beauty, great scenery, a pleasant climate, few people, a beautiful coastline, one of Africa’s greatest game parks and, the world’s oldest desert…Welcome to Namibia!
Discover the top reasons to visit Namibia. A land older than time itself, the country has reinvented itself as a destination of choice for discerning travellers, offering desert adventures, unique game drives, boutique accommodation and incredible natural wonders. Namibia, ‘The Land God Made in Anger’, was sculpted by furious forces of nature!
When thinking safaris, South Africa and Tanzania come to mind, if seeking cultural interactions, Kenya contributes bountifully, and leaving you spellbound is the Sahara, the world’s largest hot desert. Conversely, Namibia, a quiet country of almost-superlatives, offers minimal crowds with all the above and more. And that’s plenty of reason for discerning travellers to embark on Namibia tours.
7 of the best things to do in Namibia
Namibia combines desert, coast, wildlife, and adventure better than any country on earth. Read on to discover the 8 best things to do in this extraordinary country…
Namibia combines desert, coast, wildlife, and adventure better than any country on earth. From the butterscotch whip of the sky-scraping sand dunes to the magical wildlife parks, so it’s no wonder it was voted top country in this year’s Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards. Read on to discover the 8 best things to do in this extraordinary country
1. Climb the giant dunes in Sossusvlei and Deadvlei
Glowing a rich ochre-red early and late in the day, Big Daddy is giant dunes rise to 380m. After driving through the Corridor (a natural dune-lined avenue in the desert), leave your vehicle at the road’s end and continue foot, the Namib enveloping you in its sandy folds. There are head-spinning views from the dune crests, but the beauty of the desert also lies in its detail. Sink to your hands and knees and discover a graffiti of tracks scrawled in the sands – evidence of fleet-footed tok-tokkie beetles and sand-swimming shovel-snouted lizards.
2. Stake in Etosha
Thirst is the driving force behind Etosha’s mesmerising wildlife spectacle. Covering 20,000 sq km of parched wilderness in northern Namibia, it promises some of Africa’s best – and easiest – wildlife viewing during the winter dry season. Simply Park next to one of its many waterholes, then wait and watch as animals arrive to drink. Coated in the pale dust of Etosha’s immense salt pan, elephant and rhino mingle with large herds of springbok, zebra, and wildebeest, while scrubby thickets conceal lions laying in ambush. If you prefer feathers to fur, visit in summer when rains transform the pans into seasonal lakes flushed with flamingos.
3. Float above the Namib Desert in a hot air balloon
Hot air balloons over Namibia’s red and yellow sands (Namibia Tourism Board; Shutterstock)
To fully appreciate the scale of the Namib Desert you need to get airborne. A dawn hot air balloon flight gives you a vulture’s-eye view of the vast sand sea. As the roar of the balloon’s burners fade and you begin to rise above the desert, the sun’s first rays enflame the scarlet dunes below. It’s eerily quiet as you drift with the cool morning breeze. You might spot gemsbok, walking single file along sinuous dune ridges, or gaze down on skeletal camel thorn acacias clustered around clay pans. After an hour or so of Namib-induced hypnosis, you come back down to earth, toasting the experience with a champagne breakfast.
4. Track desert-adapted elephant in Damaraland
They’re out there, somewhere… Desert-adapted elephant (with smaller bodies and proportionally longer legs than bush elephants), are rare, elusive inhabitants of Damaraland. For your best chance of encountering these legendary beasts, you need to emerge from your wilderness camp at dawn. A good guide will help you track the elephants’ platter-sized footprints along the dry riverbeds that snake across this region’s bewitching landscape of gravel plains and red-ochre mountains. With luck, you’ll encounter a small herd, resting in the shade, ears flapping, or striding purposefully across the rocky desert in that timeless, ground-swallowing gait.
5. Discover a rock art world heritage site
As if Damaraland’s spectacular scenery and enigmatic wildlife weren’t reasons enough to linger in Namibia’s rugged north, there is another equally captivating facet to this rough diamond. Delve into its heat-shattered mountains and kopjes and you will find extraordinary art adorning rock faces, caves, and overhangs. The work of ancestral hunter-gatherers, some of the engravings at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Twyfelfontein are thought to be up to 10,000 years old. Look closely and you’ll see everything from giraffes, zebras and humans to geometric patterns and fantasy creatures hatched during ancient shamanistic rituals.
6. Fall under the spell of the dazzling night sky
Thanks to minimal light pollution and little cloud, Namibia’s night skies are some of the darkest and clearest anywhere in the world. In 2012, the NamibRand Nature Reserve was designated Africa’s first International Dark Sky Reserve. Gaze into the star-spattered cosmos and you can see the Milky Way arching over the Namib Desert. Take a more in-depth celestial safari, perhaps using one of the telescopes at a desert lodge, and you might well spot other stellar sensations, including Magellanic Clouds, the Coalsack Nebula, Jupiter’s red spot and the rings of Saturn.
7. Go sandboarding, skydiving or birdwatching at Swakopmund/WALVIS BAY
Where defiant desert meets seething ocean, Namibia’s adrenaline-charged seaside town offers everything from fish and chips to sandboarding and skydiving. Join a 4WD tour and you can experience ‘singing dunes’ (when mini-avalanches of sand create a deep humming sound) or find ‘living fossil’ plants in the form of the weird and wonderful Welwitschia. At nearby Walvis Bay, prime time for birdwatching is between October and April when over 150,000 migrants (including greater flamingos and chestnut-banded plovers) join resident species such as Damara terns and great white pelicans.
Joseph Kafunda., Tourist Guide operating in Namibia and Southern Africa. +264813478044 and email
josephkafunda@gmail.com
(Cover story On British Herald Magazine – Joseph Kafunda)