Namibia Travel & Safari Guides
Expert Advice, Insider Tips, and Inspiration for Your Ultimate Adventure
Do You Need an International Driving Permit for Namibia?
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…
Do You Need an International Driving Permit for Namibia?
Night Driving in Namibia, and What It Does to Your Cover
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…
Night Driving in Namibia, and What It Does to Your Cover
Taking a Namibian Hire Car to Botswana, Zambia or Zimbabwe
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…
Taking a Namibian Hire Car to Botswana, Zambia or Zimbabwe
Swakopmund Fog: When It Clears and Why It Is There
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…
Swakopmund Fog: When It Clears and Why It Is There
Solo Self-Drive in Namibia, Including as a Woman
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…
Solo Self-Drive in Namibia, Including as a Woman
Botswana Safari: Where to Go, When, and What It Costs
Scroll Travel Tips & Advice Botswana Safari: Where to Go, When, and What It Costs A Botswana safari is built around the Okavango Delta and the Chobe River, the country’s two great game areas. Go between May and October for the best game viewing and the Delta’s flood, or between December and February for the…
Botswana Safari: Where to Go, When, and What It Costs
Luxury African Safari: Namibia, Botswana or Both?
Scroll Luxury Lodges & Safaris Luxury African Safari: Namibia, Botswana or Both? Choose Namibia if scenery is the point and Botswana if game viewing is. The Okavango Delta and the Chobe riverfront deliver better game viewing than Namibia at any time of year, while Namibia’s dunes, desert and coast carry its days. Many travellers combine…
Luxury African Safari: Namibia, Botswana or Both?
Sandwich Harbour 4×4 Tours: Half-Day, Full-Day or Sunset?
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…
Sandwich Harbour 4×4 Tours: Half-Day, Full-Day or Sunset?
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
