Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Self-Drive or Guided Tour in Namibia: How to Choose Most forum travellers self-drive Namibia and are glad they did. Roads are well maintained, car hire is easy to arrange and Etosha suits driving yourself. A guide is worth considering if you would rather not drive long gravel days on the…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Etosha: Stay Inside the Park or Outside the Gates? Stay inside Etosha if the floodlit waterholes and being in the park at sunrise matter most; stay outside if comfort, food and private-reserve game drives matter more. Our own preference is for lodges outside the gates. Either way the park gates…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Is Epupa Falls Worth the Detour, and How Many Nights? Epupa Falls is worth it if you want remote river scenery and can give it two nights. It lies about 199 km of gravel north of Opuwo, so a same-day return makes a very long day. It is not a…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Swakopmund to Etosha: Damaraland Route or All Tar? There are two ways from Swakopmund to Etosha. The all-tar route runs inland via Omaruru, Otjiwarongo and Outjo to Andersson Gate. The scenic route runs via Henties Bay, Uis and Khorixas through Damaraland, with long gravel sections. Forum travellers report about six…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Swakopmund to Sossusvlei: The C14, Kuiseb and Gaub Passes Most travellers drive from the coast to Sossusvlei on the C14: from Walvis Bay inland over the Kuiseb and Gaub passes to Solitaire, where you refuel, then on to Sesriem. It is gravel for most of the way. Sources and forum…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Camping or Lodges on a Namibian Self-Drive? Camping saves the most for groups of three or four, and less than people expect for a couple. NWR charges for campsites per person, and lodge rooms are priced per person sharing, so the saving grows with the size of your group. Book…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Is the Caprivi (Zambezi Region) Worth the Drive? Worth it if you have several extra nights and want rivers, buffalo, hippo and birdlife rather than more desert. The drive is long: forum travellers put Etosha to Divundu on the Okavango at more than 600 km, about eight hours. Most who…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Is Damaraland Worth It, and How Many Nights? Yes, for most self-drive routes between the coast and Etosha. One night covers the Twyfelfontein rock engravings, which take about an hour with a guide. A second night gives time for an elephant drive or the guided walk to the White Lady…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Big Daddy or Dune 45: Which Dune to Climb at Sossusvlei Climb one dune, and climb it early. Dune 45 stands beside the main road, is short and steep, and is busiest at sunrise. Big Daddy is a longer, quieter climb that ends with a run down its face into…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Windhoek to Sossusvlei: Which Road, and Which Pass? Most travellers drive the tarred B1 south to Rehoboth, turn west onto the gravel C24, and come down the escarpment on the Spreetshoogte or Remhoogte pass to Solitaire, where they refuel. The C26 over the Gamsberg is the road GPS often picks,…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Do You Need an International Driving Permit for Namibia? If your driving licence is in English and carries your photo and signature, Namibia’s own sources say it is enough on its own. If it is not in English, you need an International Driving Permit (IDP) as well. German, Austrian and…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Night Driving in Namibia, and What It Does to Your Cover Don’t drive between towns after dark in Namibia. The UK, US and German governments all advise against it, and some hire contracts put night-time incidents on you: African Tracks makes incidents on B and C roads outside sunrise to…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Taking a Namibian Hire Car to Botswana, Zambia or Zimbabwe Ask the hire company for cross-border permission when you book, not at the counter. Botswana is allowed by most of the firms we checked; Zambia and Zimbabwe come with more conditions, and some firms don’t allow Angola at all. At…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Swakopmund Fog: When It Clears and Why It Is There Swakopmund’s mornings are often grey because air cooled by the cold sea is trapped beneath warmer air, and its moisture hangs as fog. Fog on the Namib coast is most common in the mornings and evenings and generally clears during…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Solo Self-Drive in Namibia, Including as a Woman Travellers who have done it say solo self-drive in Namibia is entirely doable, including for women driving alone. Official advice places the main crime risk in towns, at fuel stops and around unattended vehicles, not on the open road. The bigger challenges…

Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Sandwich Harbour 4×4 Tours: Half-Day, Full-Day or Sunset? Book the full day if you have the time: six hours from the Walvis Bay Waterfront, N$3,825 per adult in 2026 with Sandwich Harbour 4×4, and most travellers who have done both say the half-day feels rushed. The four-hour half-day (N$3,095) still…

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…

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…

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:…