Reviews of safaris to Namib-Naukluft National Park

"We travelled to Namibia mid July 2015 staying in the country for 15 nights. We are a family of four with 16 and 14 year old boys.

It was me that did the planning with lots of time on the Expert Africa web site and discussions with the excellent Sabina and Martha. Reading people's feedback, my expectations for the holiday were very high and they were met and exceeded. All the logistics went without a hitch, travelling around was very easy, the lodges were great, and of course the wildlife, scenery and people fantastic.

We planned our trip to visit Namibia with excellent guidance from Sabina and Martha at Expert Africa. I am sure that their knowledge and experience helped to make it a great holiday for us. You can read our experiences on individual lodges and activities on the relevant pages so the following is more general stuff.

The flights to Namibia do get booked up well in advance for mid July as it is a busy time and of course more expensive the later you get so it is best to plan and book your trip at least 4 months in advance. Accommodation also gets booked up limiting choices.

We originally planned to go clockwise - Naukluft Mountains, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaland, Etosha, Central Highlands. However due to the accommodation availability we ended up going the other way. In hindsight was this a problem? No we didn't think so. Visiting Okonjima first was fantastic and seeing Cheetah and Leopards close up (10 - 20m) was amazing. Ok they are radio collared so much easier to find (not guaranteed) but so what! We did see 'wild' cheetah in Etosha, but from what I gather this is by no means guaranteed and leopards even less likely. Okonjima was the best place we visited in terms of the accommodation and trips, and we would have preferred to stay there 2 nights.

Being the end of July it was the dry season and winter in Namibia. We are not very keen on high temperatures and the daytime temps were low to high 20's during our visit which along with low humidity was perfect. Of course night time temperatures were pretty cold - 10 deg C? Namibia doesn't do much heating apart from open fires in the communal areas and blankets / hot water bottles in the lodges. However we took the advice provided and packed and wore layers to keep us warm in the evenings and mornings. This was one of the reasons why we opted for lodges rather than a camping trip to Namibia. Obviously it was a more expensive trip though.

We booked our flights independently saving about £600 but this did impact on our holiday in that we were planning on visiting the excellent Okonjima first. However the flight I booked didn't arrive until 1pm which didn't allow enough time to get through immigration, collect the hire car and the 3.5 hrs drive from the airport, therefore we had to stay one night at River Crossing and then only one night at Okonjima and it would have been better to have arrived earlier and had two nights at Okonjima.

We planned to have two nights at most of the places we went to which makes for a more relaxing trip and time to relax as well as the activities, especially as quite a few of the trips involve early morning starts. Our trip included 2,500km of driving so having relaxing days makes this easier.

We found all the Namibians we met very warm, friendly and welcoming. The reception and service at the places we stayed at was great and In a number of lodges, we were greeted with a song as well as drink and hot towel. They were happy to chat, especially the managers and all appeared to be happy. We very much enjoyed the singing that the staff did after dinner at a number of the lodges.

Food - Our boys are not the most adventurous and at most of the places we stayed at there was either a set menu with no choices or a choice of main menu only. However, they ate just about all that was put in front of them! Game steak was a regular feature, and it was excellent! Breakfast usually included a cooked option (usually eggs & bacon) which set the day off well, especially on an early start. Most places had cold drinks, tea, coffee and hot chocolate availabile throughout the day and cake at tea time so we didn't go hungry! House wine was usually good and drinks usually sensibly prices (relative to UK prices).

Obviously it is a sparsely populated country (about 2 million people) in a country 3+ times the size of the UK so there aren't lots of shops you can just stop at and pick up a snack. So you need to plan ahead a bit, order a packed lunch if necessary but there are good shops in the towns.

In Swakopmund we wanted to do the kayaking with seals as well as sand boarding and you can do both on one day - kayaking in the morning and sand boarding in the afternoon. However it typically gets windy in the afternoon and the sand boarding would not be as much fun. So we opted to spend 3 nights in Swakopmund (at the excellent Organic Square apartments) and do kayaking on the 1st morning and sand boarding on the 2nd day which worked out very well, and the weather for both was excellent. Given we had a long drive from Damaraland and to Sesriem either side of Swakopmund, it made sense as well.

My wife didn't fancy sand boarding so went on Tommy's Tour to see the wildlife etc. Although it got excellent reviews her experience was not that good. Although they found and saw interesting animals, the group was too large (30) and his rather old vehicle had problems and did breakdown once so he was stressed about that. The biggest problem was that there wasn't time to ask questions and quite a bit was in German rather than English.

WiFi - Our boys are not surprisingly used to having a decent broadband connection. As just about all the places we stayed at were remote, some very, the connection speed was poor, and in one place there was no WiFi (only via satellite on a PC which was available for public use). Clearly they were frustrated but we thought it wasn't a bad thing and to be honest there'd was lots to do and see!! We did set one of the boys the challenge of making a video of the trip. Given he had plenty of time in the car, this worked well and he did an excellent job making a 26min video set to music and we will enjoy this for years to come!

Driving - The roads are great whether tarmac or gravel and navigation easy. Of the 2,500km a bit over half was on gravel. We had a 2WD Honda CRV which was fine and our 4 suitcases fitted in the boot under the pull over cover (just!). Obviously you can't go as fast on gravel, and some were more rutted than others but generally they were fine and there was little traffic on the road. You can't drive after dark as there is a high risk of hitting animals, and we did see a lot of warthogs and some other large herbivores close to the road so you do need to keep your wits about you! We didn't get any punctures and the Bidvest (Budget) car pick up and drop off at the airport was easy. Many of the journeys were 3+ hours long and two were 5+. To help the time pass, we download some audio books which we played through the cars audio system via an aux lead and this helped the time pass, as well as some spectacular scenery at times. Fuel was cheap but you do need to pay by cash.

Winter means the dry season, and therefore not much vegetation and animals having to visit water holes. All good news for seeing animals, and we had a great time just sitting by water holes watching the animals come and go. At one in Etosha, when we arrived there were 3 lions and then 5 others arrived over the period of an hour, all greeting the others as they met.

Etosha - we stayed at Okaukuejo Camp. On the way we stopped off at Halali which didn't seem as nice, and the flood lit water hole at Okaukuejo really was fantastic, or maybe we were lucky with the animals and their coming and going. The food and accommodation was fine. We were advised to drive ourselves around which worked well, although the advantage of going with a guide is they talk to each other on the radio so you get a better chance of seeing animals, and of course you can learn from them more about the wildlife, park etc. We did a trip into Etosha from Mushara with a guide and then did the rest ourselves which we think worked well.

Trips - We contemplated going on an organised trip with a guide, the advantages being not having to worry about any organisation when out there and having the opportunity to learn from the guide, and for us and the boys to interact with the others in the group - could be good, or not so??!! However the downside was having to go on specific dates (which wasn't easy) and limited to the

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I think you did an excellent job, but it would have been nice to have had more detail on how the price was made up rather than just a single figure." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"We loved the trip. We were surprised by how well developed much of the tourist infrastructure is in Namibia, how easy and accessible travel is throughout the country, and how friendly and welcoming the locals are. The pace was quite exhausting, but we expected that going in. If we were to have a redo of the same trip, I would extend it by about a third, so we would have a better balance of driving to having time for actual activities.

Generally everything went according to plan and we got to see and do things we planned on seeing and doing. One thing we did not get to do was visit Skeleton Coast NP, because that is a full-day activity from Swakopmund, and our one full day was partly taken up by the kayaking trip. The one change I would have made to our itinerary would be to skip the last night in River Crossing and instead have 3 nights/2 full days in Swakopmund, so we would have had time to go to Skeleton Coast park and drive from there straight to the airport for our evening flight home.

We were very happy with the places we stayed in. There were a few minor hiccups, inevitably, as I describe in my detailed comments on accommodations, but overall everything was great and we were very happy with the choices." Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 8 on a Namibia trip

"This was an excellent holiday, and we really enjoyed exploring the diversity of places, activities and landscapes that Namibia has to offer. We really appreciated the informed advice from Tracy at Expert Africa when we were planning this trip - it made planning a lot simpler and easier.

However - and this is a big however - we object to the advice that a normal 2WD car is sufficient for the route that we took. We were assured that this would be fine, so we hired a Toyata Corolla. This was of course fine on tarmac, and meant we had good fuel efficiency. However, the gravel roads and access routes to lodges were very difficult and stressful to travel on in this car. We are not inexperienced, and we drove very carefully - and slowly - which meant that we took significantly longer than most to travel a route. Despite our care, we could not avoid damage to our car undercarriage on the access road to one lodge. We managed to avoid other damage that we needed to repair (though we incurred several dents and knocks from stones thrown up from the road) - had our car had a higher ground clearance and a more robust undercarriage we could have avoided this.

The car was extremelyuncomfortable to sit in on the gravel roads if they were not freshly regraded, including in the centre of Etosha near Halali - neither we nor the car were built for all the vibrations that ensued. Given that this is was an expensive holiday, paying a little extra for a more robust and comfortable car would have been money well-spent. This doesn't necessarily have to be a 4WD but it would be the easiest way to ensure the car is up to the job, When the roads are long and empty and you have no mobile reception, you want confidence that the car is built for the job." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip

"A VERY VARIED AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCE , NAMIBIA MET AND EXCEED ALL OUR EXPECTATIONS IN TERMS OF SCENERY AND WILDLIFE." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip

"Well organised
Good advice .
No hiccups
No complaints
Memorable trip!!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
Be a bit more specific as to what is included/excluded in the all in price.
Eg """"Imported drinks """"in my book are drinks not made in Namibia.
After 4 days I realised that this wasn't so!!" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"This was really the trip of a lifetime! We saw and did so much. For people who like to watch birds and animals, this provided opportunities galore!

It was also a very nice itinerary, suited to our particular interests and preferences. We would have liked to be more active since we aren't used to spending so much time in vehicles, but recognize that the nature of the trip made this very difficult. Game drives made it possible to see much more, from a closer distance, with less hazard.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
Overall, the trip was very well organized. We stayed in some spectacular places.

Having the customized map and letter really helped in terms of self-drive navigation. (Two small points: The location for Okonjima was too far north for the actual turn off. Also, there were a couple of inconsistencies between the letter and the actual itinerary that looked like they were 'left overs' from a previous version of the letter.)

In terms of the overall itinerary, the trip was very well organized. If we were to do it again, we would make very few changes. We might skip BullsPort (but then wouldn't have walked at all!). We could also have skipped Mushara Bush Camp, except that we did need somewhere to overnight in about that location. Maybe we could have stayed inside the park? We loved having a waterhole chalet in Etosha and that was really a highlight. Footsteps was an interesting experience and might have been more important to us if we hadn't spent the previous 4 days kayaking and walking in the delta with a different outfitter." Read full review: 31 nights in Africa; 19 on a Namibia trip

"Superb

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Some comments sent already [Ed: in lodge review pages - linked to below], no major suggestions, all went really well. Many thanks!" Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"Our trip as a whole was excellent - we have never had a better holiday and will remember it forever with great affection." Read full review: 36 nights in Africa; 28 on a Namibia trip

"This was a fantastic trip. We spent 25 days doing a full circuit of Namibia - everything we expected and far more.

I expected it to be all desert, but I never knew how many different kinds of desert there are and what amazing landscapes and geology Namibia has. Nor did I realise what a fantastic variety of wildlife and birds there are.

We chose to have a driver/guide and it was well worth every penny - he not only took all the strain of the long drives, he was also an astonishing fund of knowledge and expertise. WIthout him, we would not have seen half the things we did, nor appreciated what we did see half as much.

Then we had 9 days in the Okavango Delta, a truly amazing place where the concentration and variety of wildlife is quite extraordinary. Very good guides provided by the lodges to find all the animals. The days were filled with great experiences.

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We had a fanatastic time and no complaints at all. However, we did find that quite a few of the lodges etc were really rather over the top in their attempts to emulate 4- or 5-star hotels. It's a matter of personal preference, but we actually felt more comfortable in the places that didn't try quite so hard and were perhaps a little more authentic in their atmosphere - like Etendeka and Kwara.

If I had known better what the range of options was, I could probably have explained this to Tracy at the beginning. So my suggestion would be that your agents could maybe spend a little more time getting to know what the client's expectations are and what kind of experiences they are looking for, and discuss the options, to enable them to make better-informed choices.

My impression is that, because I didn't have a limited budget, the assumption was that we would automatically prefer the most up-market places; that doesn't apply to us and maybe others are the same." Read full review: 35 nights in Africa; 25 on a Namibia trip

"We have had the good fortune of having a lifetime of travel adventures to over 100 countries spread over every continent. Among those many trips our experience in Namibia with Expert Africa stands out as one of the very best.

Of course a lot of that is because the country of Namibia has so much to offer. It is probably the safest and easiest country on the continent for independent travel. It also helps that it has a lot of very dramatic scenery and fascinating people and wildlife. But Expert Africa also played a large role in making this trip memorable. They know Namibia very well and booked us into the best lodges in the best regions of the country.

Because of Expert Africa everything went very smoothly on our trip. I recommend them without any reservation.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep up the great job!" Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip