Reviews of safaris to NamibRand Nature Reserve

"It was remarkably better than I had even hoped. A trip we won't soon forget.

The Covid-19 restrictions were unpleasant but once we departed Airworld we were fine.

My one concern is the cost, which makes this hard to recommend to most of my relatives though I have friends who could afford it." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"We enjoyed Namibia, especially during Covid times when there are so few people.

One lodge, Ai Aiba was disappointing and felt “low end”- our travel consultant should have suggested a different place.

The other issue was with Etendeka and Tok Tokkie: my wife and I found the description quite misleading: there is nothing Luxury about Tok Tokkie, and it should have been presented as a camping trip with no tent. I believe that Etendeka is similar. Expert Africa should have made it very clear that conditions are very basic and that it can get freezing cold, windy and sandy at night and the bed is a very basic foldable one, and this was not conveyed to us clearly. While Mandulea was also not luxurious, it did have some basic comforts like light, real bed, shower and toilettes which worked well for us.

On the positive side, Onguma and Hoodia exceeded our expectations and were superb." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"We had an excellent trip to Namibia with the assistance of Expert Africa.

We were fortunate to time our trip right in the middle of COVID waves and found Namibia to be operating largely as normal. Cities such as Swakop were quite strict on safety protocols. The remote camps were a bit more lax. But we found a self drive as a great way to vacation during the pandemic and were lucky to have many of the camps to ourselves with a full staff serving us.

Many thanks to Maruska for her excellent recommendations and her flexibility in dealing with passport issues - she truly went above and beyond. The highlight of our trip was the drive from Swakop up to Damaraland and through the Skeleton Coast park.

Self driving is an absolute must in Namibia!" Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"We both had a wonderful time.

Expert Africa were good from the time of initial contact to the completion of the trip. All went very smoothly and left us able to relax and enjoy ourselves.Which we certainly did.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep going as you are. Happy to return for our next trip." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 6 on a Namibia trip

"We had an excellent trip. But, like a previous reviewer, we would have enjoyed it more with a better vehicle. EA recommend a Renault Duster as being 4-wheel drive and adequate for the Namibian roads. While 4-wheel drive is occasionally useful, the Duster has standard tyres and in some places more rubber is definitely needed. The roads round Sesriem and in Damaraland are considerably worse than in other parts we visited and we would recommend anyone visiting these areas to pick a Toyota hi-lux. See our comments on Bidvest for more details.

Our second disappointment was the amount of electric light we experienced. Nearly every lodge had path lights which stayed on all night, ruining the view of the sky, and in some cases our sleep. We were used to little light and Tilley lamps on previous visits to Africa and this came as a shock. Tok Tokkie and Mundulea were a relief from this. In some places the lights were behind the tent/room but at Erongo we had to resort to removing lightbulbs from the path outside to allow us to sleep. At Ongava, the waterhole light shone directly into our room. We are very saddened that lodges feel this amount of light is necessary.

EA often states that when on half board “drinks are extra”. Most of the lodges we stayed on half board included 2 large glasses of house wine per person each night. Sundowners were extra.

We stayed at 3 Wilderness Safaris lodges and got to know their dining style. Everywhere else game was often the meat provided, at Wilderness it was regularly basic beef, pork or chicken which was quite uninteresting. They also had an obsession with hot plates, which at 30C seemed unnecessary.

It was very nice to receive a recent copy of the Namibia guidebook in August. This was hardly opened before our trip and still fell apart before we got to Etosha. A large number of pages fell out somewhere which meant that we didn't have the information about Etosha that we wanted. We also had with us a 30 year old bird book with all its pages intact. It's a shame Bradt can't make their books a little more robust.

We were told that using toilets at petrol stations could not be recommended. We carefully took a trowel and a roll of paper with us. This was completely unnecessary as every toilet we visited was spotless." Read full review: 25 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip

"I had planned our engagement in Dead Vlei in great detail and even ending up in the wrong pan and there being no sunrise (fog) couldn't detract from it being an amazing location, possibly my favourite and a truly amazing country. I wanted to show Agita what all the fuss was about and Namibia didn't fail to deliver once again.

Thank goodness she said yes as we still had 14 days to spend in a car together - could have been a bit embarrassing

I would like to thank the EA team with special thanks to Megan (who sorted out a few wrinkles during the trip) for all their support and also the Wilderness team for getting our luggage to us at Wolvedans which is greatly appreciated, as we were starting to small by day four.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

It is difficult to call anything perfect, but you are getting very very close." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 19 on a Namibia trip

"Our second visit to Namibia and every bit as good as the first with spectacular scenery and a very high standard of accommodation.

Peter, our guide/ driver was excellent and added to our experience. The activities were varied and we saw more wildlife than expected. Kolmanskop was excellent but the tour to Elisabeth Bay was an unnecessary add on in our view. We had a very uninspiring guide (Helmut) and would have enjoyed more time at Kolmanskop instead. Peter picked up our frustration with the guide but it wasn’t appropriate for him to do anything at the time.

We are already thinking about another trip!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 11 on a Namibia trip

"Another excellent, flawlessly organised, Expert Africa trip - special thanks to Sabina for her excellent advice and spending time to help us tailor exactly what suited us best." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"gorgeous trip ...Namibia is a marvellous country with a lot of different landscape...we have seen quite a lot of animals as lions, hyena,girafe,onyx,.zebra...but we have seen more in okavango...the best here is marvellous and very different landscape from desrt, mountains,sea side..." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 16 on a Namibia trip

"We loved the trip (we knew we would because my sister and her husband enjoyed it so much two years ago) Good variety of experiences.

Wonderful country, lovely people, excellent guides" Read full review: 27 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip