Namibia Travel & Safari Guides
Expert Advice, Insider Tips, and Inspiration for Your Ultimate Adventure
Namibia’s Green Season, Honestly: January to April
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Namibia’s Green Season, Honestly: January to April The green season (January to April) trades hotter, wetter days and harder-to-spot game for green landscapes, newborn animals, prime birding, fewer visitors and lower prices. Namibia’s green season is the part of the year the brochures skim over, and the trade-offs are real…
Namibia’s Green Season, Honestly: January to April
Tipping in Namibia in 2026: What’s Actually Normal
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Tipping in Namibia in 2026: What’s Actually Normal Plan on roughly N$75–150 per guest per day for a guide, N$50–150 per guest per night for lodge staff, 10–15% in restaurants and about N$5–10 for petrol attendants, in cash. Tipping advice for Namibia is everywhere, and the most-quoted guide still sets…
Tipping in Namibia in 2026: What’s Actually Normal
Tyre Pressure on Namibia’s Gravel, and the Second-Spare Question
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Tyre Pressure on Namibia’s Gravel, and the Second-Spare Question Run about 1.8 bar (cold) on gravel, or 10–20% below your tar pressure, and reflate before you rejoin tar. A second spare earns its place on remote routes. Gravel is where Namibian self-drives go wrong, and usually in the same way:…
Tyre Pressure on Namibia’s Gravel, and the Second-Spare Question
The Sossusvlei 4×4 Shuttle and the Walk to Deadvlei
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice The Sossusvlei 4×4 Shuttle and the Walk to Deadvlei Yes. Since 2 May 2026 you can drive the final 5 km to Sossusvlei in your own 4×4 and walk on to Deadvlei; the concessionaire shuttle is optional, listed at about N$250 per adult. The last stretch into Sossusvlei is 5…
The Sossusvlei 4×4 Shuttle and the Walk to Deadvlei
What Namibian Car-Hire Insurance Does Not Cover
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice What Namibian Car-Hire Insurance Does Not Cover Namibian car-hire insurance leaves more uncovered than most visitors expect. Even with an excess waiver, rental terms commonly exclude tyres, rims, windscreen and glass, sandblast and underbody damage, and water damage, and the single-vehicle rollover, the most likely accident on gravel, is excluded…
What Namibian Car-Hire Insurance Does Not Cover
Sesriem Gate Times, Month by Month
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Sesriem Gate Times, Month by Month The Sesriem gate opens at sunrise and closes at sunset, so the time shifts through the year, from about 07:38 in June and July to about 06:00 in November and December. The inner gate to Sossusvlei opens roughly an hour earlier. NWR publishes no…
Sesriem Gate Times, Month by Month
How to Book the Camps Inside Etosha
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice How to Book the Camps Inside Etosha You book Etosha’s rest camps directly with Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR). Its online portal at nwr.cimsoweb.com is working again in 2026, and you can also reserve by emailing reservations@nwr.com.na or phoning the Windhoek or Swakopmund office. Book several months ahead for the May…
How to Book the Camps Inside Etosha
Is My Namibia Itinerary Too Ambitious? What the Map Leaves Out
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Is My Namibia Itinerary Too Ambitious? What the Map Leaves Out The most repeated question on the Namibia travel internet is some version of “is this too ambitious?” — posted with a day count and a list of places, on TripAdvisor and Fodor’s, several times a week. The answers are…
Is My Namibia Itinerary Too Ambitious? What the Map Leaves Out
Namibia eSIM and Mobile Coverage: What Actually Works
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Namibia eSIM and Mobile Coverage: What Actually Works Four separate threads are running on TripAdvisor right now arguing about whether an Airalo eSIM works in Namibia. The travellers contradict each other, nobody cites anything, and the answer is actually knowable. Here it is, with dates on it. MTC supports eSIM…
Namibia eSIM and Mobile Coverage: What Actually Works
Walvis Bay Lagoon: 51,000 Flamingos, and Where They Go
Scroll Wildlife Encounters Walvis Bay Lagoon: 51,000 Flamingos, and Where They Go The flamingos at Walvis Bay are the most photographed birds in Namibia and among the least explained. The number standing in that lagoon can fall by forty-five thousand between one count and the next, and the reason is four hundred kilometres inland. Walvis…
Walvis Bay Lagoon: 51,000 Flamingos, and Where They Go
Namibia’s Black Rhino: The Subspecies That Came Back
Scroll Wildlife Encounters Namibia’s Black Rhino: The Subspecies That Came Back Almost every article about Namibian rhino opens by calling them critically endangered. For Namibia’s own subspecies that stopped being true in 2020, and the reason it stopped is the most interesting conservation story in the country. Namibia’s black rhino is Diceros bicornis bicornis, the…
Namibia’s Black Rhino: The Subspecies That Came Back
Spitzkoppe: The Rock, the Rock Art and What It Costs
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Spitzkoppe: The Rock, the Rock Art and What It Costs Spitzkoppe is on every Namibia itinerary and in every photograph of the country, and almost nothing written about it gives you the two numbers you actually need: what it costs, and what the rock art has already lost. Spitzkoppe is…
Spitzkoppe: The Rock, the Rock Art and What It Costs
Cheetahs in Namibia: The Claim That No Longer Holds
Scroll Wildlife Encounters Cheetahs in Namibia: The Claim That No Longer Holds Every Namibian safari company, this one included, has at some point told a client that Namibia holds the largest cheetah population in the world. It is the most repeated wildlife fact in the country. On the most recent figures it is no longer…
Cheetahs in Namibia: The Claim That No Longer Holds
Kolmanskop: The Diamond Town the Desert Took Back
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Kolmanskop: The Diamond Town the Desert Took Back Kolmanskop is the most photographed ruin in Namibia and the most confidently mis-described. Almost every account of it repeats two superlatives that no source supports. The documented history is stranger than either of them. Kolmanskop is an abandoned German diamond-mining town outside…
Kolmanskop: The Diamond Town the Desert Took Back
Etosha’s Waterholes: How the Park Actually Works
Scroll Wildlife Encounters Etosha’s Waterholes: How the Park Actually Works Etosha is not a park you drive through looking for animals. It is a park where the animals come to you, because for eight months of the year there is almost nowhere else for them to drink. Understanding that is the whole of it. Etosha…
Etosha’s Waterholes: How the Park Actually Works
Namibia’s Desert Elephants: What Is Actually Different
Scroll Wildlife Encounters Namibia’s Desert Elephants: What Is Actually Different Every second travel page about Namibia’s desert elephants says the same two things: that they are a distinct kind of elephant, and that they have evolved larger feet for the sand. Neither claim survives contact with the published research. Namibia’s desert-adapted elephants are African savanna…
Namibia’s Desert Elephants: What Is Actually Different
Sossusvlei and Deadvlei: The Final Five Kilometres
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Sossusvlei and Deadvlei: The Final Five Kilometres Almost everything written about Sossusvlei describes the dunes. Almost nothing describes the five kilometres of sand that decide whether you reach them, a stretch the Namibian government closed and reopened inside forty-eight hours in 2026. Sossusvlei and Deadvlei sit at the end of…
Sossusvlei and Deadvlei: The Final Five Kilometres
Staying Healthy on a Namibia Safari: Heat, Water, Malaria
Scroll Health on Safari Staying Healthy on a Namibia Safari: Heat, Water and Malaria Namibia is a low-risk destination for health. The classic circuit — Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaraland and southern Etosha — is outside the malaria zone. The real issues are dry air at altitude, a 25°C daily temperature swing, and dehydration you cannot feel.…
Staying Healthy on a Namibia Safari: Heat, Water, Malaria
What Are Namibian Roads Like? Gravel, Speed & Safety
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Namibia Self-Drive Safaris: The Ultimate African Road Adventure A Namibia self-drive safari is the classic way to see the country: Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaraland and Etosha, driven yourself over ten to fourteen days. A 2WD covers the standard circuit. Roads are good, distances are long, and you set the pace. Namibia…
What Are Namibian Roads Like? Gravel, Speed & Safety
Can You Self-Drive in Etosha? 2026 Rules & Fees
Scroll Etosha Can You Self-Drive in Etosha, or Do You Need a Guide? Yes. Etosha is fully self-drive — an ordinary 2WD on tarred and graded gravel roads, no guide required. The rules that matter are the gate times, not the vehicle. You must be inside a camp before the gates close. Etosha is the…
Can You Self-Drive in Etosha? 2026 Rules & Fees
How Many Days Do You Need in Namibia?
Scroll Trip Planning How Many Days Do You Need in Namibia? Ten days is the working minimum for Namibia’s classic circuit — Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaraland and Etosha. Seven days works only if you drop one of those four. Fourteen days is the version nobody regrets. We sell fourteen-day trips. That is worth saying before anything…
How Many Days Do You Need in Namibia?
