Category: Namibia

A 5-day Namibia itinerary works well provided you commit to one region rather than trying to loop the country. The strongest short route runs Windhoek, Sossusvlei and Swakopmund, covering the dunes and the Atlantic coast in around 1,100 kilometres. Trying…

Brandberg Mountain is Namibia's highest massif, a granite dome rising some 2,000 metres above the surrounding plains to the Königstein summit at 2,573 metres. It holds tens of thousands of San rock paintings including the famous White Lady in the…

Dune 45 is a 170 metre star dune standing beside the road 45 kilometres inside the Sossusvlei gate, and it is the most climbed dune in Namibia. The ridge takes forty minutes to an hour to walk up and a…

Namibia is among the safer African countries to travel in, and the risks that actually injure visitors are not the ones they worry about. Driving accounts for more harm than crime and wildlife combined. Malaria concentrates in the far north…

Namibia holds the highest density of greater kudu in Africa, and the country is also the only place in the species' range where kudu suffer recurring rabies epidemics. The first outbreak killed an estimated 50,000 animals, around a fifth of…

A first Namibian trip should cover four places in ten days, not seven places in ten days. The commonest planning error here is treating a map as a schedule. Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Etosha and Damaraland form the standard circuit, and the…

A 7-day Namibia itinerary is the shortest trip that can take in the desert, the coast and Etosha, covering roughly 1,900 kilometres from Windhoek. It is workable but driving heavy, with four transfer days out of seven. Travellers who would…

Namibia holds three of Africa's four hyena species, including the rarest of them. The brown hyena, known locally as the strandwolf, numbers perhaps 800 to 1,200 here, with around half living along the Namib coast where they feed almost entirely…

Duwisib Castle is a pseudo-medieval stone fortress standing alone in the semi-desert southwest of Maltahöhe, built by a German officer for his American wife and abandoned within six years when he was killed at the Somme. It has 22 rooms…

Henties Bay exists because of fishing, a town of holiday houses and caravan pitches on the Skeleton Coast road north of Swakopmund, filling with anglers over the December holidays and quiet the rest of the year. It is the base…