Author: Chard

In Namibia, where you book decides whether wildlife pays for itself. The country handed rural communities legal rights over the animals on their land, and your bed night is part of the mechanism rather than a gesture toward it. That…

The Petrified Forest near Khorixas holds around fifty fossilised tree trunks lying in open veld, some up to 34 metres long, dating to roughly 260 to 280 million years ago. The trees did not grow here. They were carried in…

Roughly half of Namibia's population lives in the four northern regions and almost no visitors go there. This is the country's most densely settled area, flat sandy plains dotted with makalani palms, mahangu fields and thousands of small bars called…

The oryx, known in Namibia by its Afrikaans name gemsbok, is the country's national animal and appears on the coat of arms. It is the large antelope you will see standing in full sun on open gravel where nothing else…

Opuwo is the capital of the Kunene Region and the last town before Namibia's remotest country, a dusty grid of streets where Himba, Herero, Zemba and Damara communities meet in the same supermarket. The name means the end in Otjiherero.…

Nyae Nyae Conservancy covers around 8,992 square kilometres of Kalahari sandveld around Tsumkwe in northeastern Namibia and was the first communal conservancy registered in the country. It is home to the Ju/'hoansi San, who have lived here for thousands of…

NamibRand Nature Reserve is one of Africa's largest private conservation areas, around 215,000 hectares of desert south of Sossusvlei assembled from 17 former livestock farms with the fences taken down. It receives no government funding and pays for itself through…

Namibia has the lowest rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa and a daily temperature swing that catches everyone out. A day at Sossusvlei in June can reach the mid twenties and the same night can drop below freezing. The coast stays around…

Botswana delivers more animals; Namibia delivers more country. That is the honest summary and everything else follows from it. Botswana costs considerably more and concentrates on wildlife. Namibia costs a fraction as much, can be self driven, and offers desert,…

Hundreds of vessels lie along the Skeleton Coast, wrecked by fog, offshore rocks and a current that pushes ships onto a shore with no harbour for a thousand kilometres. The Eduard Bohlen now sits 800 metres inland as the desert…