Category: Namibia

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…

Ostriches are the largest and heaviest birds on earth, reaching 2.8 metres and up to 150 kilograms, and they roam wild across Etosha, the Namib gravel plains and most of the open country between. They sprint at up to 70…

Sable and roan are the two antelope Namibian conservationists went to most trouble to save. Waterberg Plateau Park was proclaimed to breed and maintain them alongside tsessebe, and the sandstone cliffs that make the plateau inaccessible from below are what…

Springbok are the most numerous antelope in Namibia and one of very few African mammals whose population is growing rather than shrinking, with somewhere between 1.4 and 2.5 million across southern Africa. They are named for pronking, the stiff legged…

Namibia's wildlife is defined by aridity rather than abundance. Game densities are lower than East Africa, and what the country holds instead are animals doing something difficult: desert adapted elephant and lion, free roaming black rhino, and the largest cheetah…

A Namibia wildlife safari itinerary looks nothing like the standard tourist circuit, because it drops Sossusvlei and the coast entirely and spends the time on animals instead. The eleven night route below runs Okonjima, four nights at Etosha, rhino tracking…

Otjiwarongo is the junction town of northern Namibia, sitting where the roads to Etosha, Waterberg and Damaraland separate, and almost every visitor passes through it. Its name means the place of fat cattle in Otjiherero. The Cheetah Conservation Fund, the…

Sandwich Harbour is a coastal wetland roughly 50 kilometres south of Walvis Bay where the dunes of the Namib run straight into the Atlantic. It sits inside Namib-Naukluft National Park, is Ramsar listed, and is reached only by guided 4x4…

Namibia has some of the darkest skies on earth, and the NamibRand Nature Reserve holds Gold Tier International Dark Sky Reserve status, the first in Africa. Almost no artificial light, exceptionally dry air and 300 clear days a year produce…

Windhoek needs one day and rewards two. Most travellers treat it as an airport with a hotel attached, which misses the only place in Namibia where the country's history is laid out in a walkable few blocks. The Independence Memorial…