Namibia: reviews from our travellers

"Everything worked as planned and all the pre-trip advice was excellent (except Ongava). Very patient staff answering numerous questions. It helps that our adviser was a Namibian.

Thank you.

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We missed out on comments about the Windhoek Country Club which was a great stopover.

Some lodges had poor entry roads (very badly rutted, far worse than the public roads).

The Skeleton coast no longer has any skeletons. We are glad we did it but there isn't much to see except the emptiness. We had difficult finding someone to open the gates to the NP as there were only 3/4 cars each way per day. We only had one shock with petrol in the whole trip. This was along the Skeleton coast where the petrol station at Mile 108 has closed. This meant, even with a full tank that we had to divert to Palmwag for petrol: a 50 km detour. This was exciting for us but not everyone's cup of tea.

We bought a cool box in Windhoek: this is probably a sensible move as ice is available everywhere." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Apart from the car hire, everything more than met our expectations.

The itinerary was a great success with no adverse reflections on any of the chosen lodges. Thanks to Tracy for her help and advice.

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Just keep up the good work!" Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 9 on a Namibia trip

"As a whole we were delighted with our trip. It was well organised and Maruska gave us good advice.

Some of the accommodation was below par but mostly it was of excellent quality. We were so pleased that she advised on a larger car, the X-Trail, and that made the travelling pleasant. We felt that 3 nights at Khowarib was a mistake and you could do the half-day Himba visit on the day you leave so we paid for an extra night at Doro Nowas instead.

This was a special retirement trip and it did not disappoint.

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Only to take note of the points we raised regarding some of the lodges." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"It turned out that Maduska very very knowledgeable about Namibia and basically did a great job in organizing our trip.

My only complian is that we had to drive about 450 klms on the last drive to get from sossusvlei Lodge to Engingu Guest lodge and I was cursing the last 100 klms. Fortunately the place was quite magical and made it worth it, but the drive was very long for 2 60 + folk

We have traveled extensively and found that Namibia is unexpectedly a wonderful gem............I am truly sorry to not have spent more time there" Read full review: 5 nights in Africa; 4 on a Namibia trip

"We spent 6 nights in Kruger National Park, 6 nights in Sabi Sand and 6 nights in Namibia obtaining images for a book on Africa we are writing. We could travel anywhere in the world for the next 10 years and not have a better trip than this, despite the problems with missing luggage etc. No 3 week trip is going to be perfect but this was very close.

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Can't think of anything." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 6 on a Namibia trip

"Apart from the route between Doro Nawas and Hobatere, and our last full day, the information and advice was thorough and very useful.

I think the instructions need to more consistent i.e. if comments are made about some bad roads, then ALL bad roads in the itinerary should be mentioned. Time or distance from the main road to the actual camps would be very useful.

We are not used to package holidays and it is easy to be complacent and think everything has been arranged in advance, all the maps perfect etc when using someone else.! I would have phoned ahead to all the places first to let them know when to expect us and check on directions. I am not sure what would have happened if we had a problem on route and not arrived which left me somewhat anxious especially as the phone did not always connect.

I bought a Namibian phone card which was good value - nb all internal text messages are free - you just pay for the calls.

The Bradt guide book was excellent - we almost left it behind and would have been stuck without it. We met other people using it.

The guide book had a few corrections to be made :

1) no walking tours included at Doro Nawas
2) Otavi - Rugger club was clearly not serving any meals
3) the Meteor Hotel in Otavi is called the Travel Inn on the main road so easy to miss it. A good recommendation and we had tasty pizzas.
4) In Etosha you talk about parking uder a tree in midday but we saw no trees where this can be done - suggest you delete this in next editions.
5) No garden centre restaurant in Okandja
6) Rhinos in Okandja was a simple restaurant run by a friendly family from Madeira and a good stop for a quick lunch.
7) In Okandja one lot of stalls has been burt down recently - only one lot of stalls now at the far end of the town.
8) Uis - beware of people selling crystals quite aggressively at the petrol station
9) If you want to go to the Tug Restaurant at Swakopmund you need to book it well in advance. In the end we got a late cancellation. Considered a touristy place by the locals but quite fun!
10) No ATMs in the Etosha Park - would have been useful to know this.
11) Petrol pump at Windhoek airport is not for the public. Only certain car hire companies can use it - Budget is one of them. Might be a good idea to fill up in Windhoek first to play safe.

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We felt that driving times as described were not always realistic for a small car. As mentioned before, it would be useful to know in advance how long it takes to drive up the private roads or how long they are. 5 or 7 kms is a long way when you think you have arrived!

We are not convinced that Doro Nawas was the best stop for 2 nights and that we could have spent the time doing something else more interesting such as visiting the cheetah or lion conservancies.

Rating the accommodation is difficult as a tent cannot be called excellent and there fore I have given a consistent good throughout the form. ~They were all spacious and airy with comfortable beds." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 16 on a Namibia trip

"Overall our trip was marred by the fact that we had an ordinary car. This was totally unsuitable. You have already received comments on the especially bad roads. This made travelling stressful, uncomfortable and tiring. We would often only reach our destination at dusk as we had to travel so slowly.We could not enjoy the journey or stop because of the stress of the hours of daylight left to get to our destination. Once at our destinations we were exhausted and shaken which marred our enjoyment of the lodge, location, wildlife.
Etosha, one of our planned highlights was especially disappoiting due to the fact we only had a car (see earlier comments).

We saw almost no other 2WD vehicles throughout the trip and everyone we spoke to, either locals or in the tourism business could not believe we had been advised that a car would be ok for the journey we were undertaking.

We advise that under no circumstances future guests are infomred that a 2WD vechilce is acceptable.

One final recommnendation....provide some advice on tipping and especailly advise on the car park security attendants. The first time we parked the car and saw someone coming towards us with a cosh we thought we were going to be attacked and not that he was coming to offer to look after the car.!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

see comments throughout questionnaire.

I reiterate again DO NOT recommend 2WD vehicles... the stress, discomfort, seeemingly endless punctures/tyre problems overroad any real enjoyment of the holiday." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 16 on a Namibia trip

"Overall, we had a wonderful holiday, so thank you all very much. We will return and will recommend Namibia and you guys to others without hesitation.

One more note for your book, Chris: the R200 note is now in common use in Namibia!

One final thought: We do think things are getting rather expensive in Southern Africa. I spent about £2000 while in Namibia in addition to the base cost of the trip (more than I had anticipated) - and I could have spent much more. Apparently there are people willing to pay £600 for a bottle of wine (see the Mushara wine list.) If people are not careful, they will price themselves out of the market!

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Just do what you can to impress on the operators out there that they have a wonderful product, and it would be a real mistake to get greedy. Geese and golden eggs come to mind!!!" Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Namibia is a unique destination, which still ticks all the boxes for us, even after 10 years of annual visits!" Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"For me this was a long held dream which exceeded my expectations. We had been impressed by the knowledge and experience of your staff - Tracy initially and then Angela - and their willingness truly to create what we wanted raher than (as with another company we approached) tinkering slightly with a standard package.

It was only once we got there that we realised the extent to which that knowledge and experience had been used to shape our trip into something that worked well for us and gave us a much better experience than we could have put together for ourselves. The advice and guidance, with some small exceptions, covered everything we needed to know to make life easy.

The exceptions - for me they were the lack of any obvious guidance on driving on sand roads (it's in the guidebook but I didn't see that until we were stuck), the detailed instructions for finding the wrong Erongo Lodge and something on the ubiquitous car guards would have been useful. My husband would have liked advice on going faster on the gravel roads when they're in poor condition - that was the local advice we were given and it certainly made the bumpier stretches less painful.

I can see however that there are inherent dangers in that and that it is important that less skillful drivers recognise that anything over 60-80kph could have unfortunate effects.

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Any omissions were very minor. I'd be happy yo use you again and have certainly been recommending you to friends." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip