Namibia: reviews from our travellers

"Having been born in Africa and not visited it for over 14 years this trip has been a truly wonderful opportunity to rekindle my passion for this continent and has left me very homesick for the place where my heart with forever truly lie.

One Africa is in your blood or gets under your skin you will never cease to hanker for the open space, simplicity and true honest friendly welcome of the local people. The terrain and landscape is breathtaking, so variable and truely magical.

Suggestions for improvement:

Keep up the amazing work- it has been terrific to deal with a company that truely understands and is willing to advise and put together an itinerary hat is so perfectly suited to a clients requirements and desires. Thanks so much for making this trip everything | had hoped for and more!" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 4 on a Namibia trip

"We had sought to cover more than most in a 16 day trip, and the combination of road & flights worked really well, so thank you Maruska for putting together such a workable itinerary. It helped that A loves driving and so was more than happy to cover 450km in a day when needed - and the roads were quite okay. Worst bit was a patch on the C12 to Fish River canyon (very bumpy) but other than that we had some fantastic drives, particularly the C13 from Fish River canyon up to Aus - stunning!

Our route was Windhoek-Bagatelle-Fish River Canyon-Aus-Luderitz-Wolwedans-Little Kulala (by car) and then Doro Nawas-Ongava Lodge-Windhoek by plane. It was a throughly enjoyable mixture of hikes, wildlife, dunes, scenic drives and flights. We consider ourselves immensely privileged to have seen Namibia's nature when it wished to reveal itself - be it lion cub, hyena, scorpion, desert elephant, rainbow, lightening... fabulous!

Suggestions for improvements:

Only thing I would have appreciated was a simple guide to birds & wildlife - just a basic booklet of the most likely suspects. I picked up a check-list (no pictures) at Little Kulala, and bought the Etosha guide booklet - but that was our last stop so it was tricky remembering what we'd seen. Couldn't find anything suitable in any of the lodge shops en route and didn't want or need individual books on birds, mammals, reptiles etc" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Great holiday overall and we were awe struck by the landscape. There are a few things we would do differently such as:

Skip Windhoek
Stay closer to Etosha
Do Twyfelfontein from a different lodge
Do half day tour at Swakopmund

But these are details; it was a great great holiday and we hope to do Fish River Canyon and The Caprivi Strip on our next visit." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 16 on a Namibia trip

"The animals at Etosha were inevitably he highlight of our trip but this doe not take away anything from the rst of our holiday. We stayed at some exceptional places and had some wonderful experiences. Namibia is a stunning country and we enjoyed every aspect to it.

This is the second time we have used Expert Africa and the Bradt guide and are sure to use them both again. Sabina was always helpful and responded well to all my quirky requests.

Suggestions for improvement:

This not an improvement but is something I would like EXpert to consider taking up.

This is that I think that the quality of the experience offered by NWR at, especially, Etosha is deteriorating. Although the individual staff are generally courteous and helpful I think they need to improve their service as they no longer offer a value for money experience compared with that offered by the lodges with which they are in competition. This is an issue for them but my main concern lies with their management of the Park.

Firstly, I was extrememly concerned by their seeming lack of an effective response to a fire in the Park when I was there at the beginning of October. I first noticed the fire in the morning as a very small column of smoke which by the end of the day had extended on at least a 5km front from the western edge of the park right up to the Pan. I was told this was not the first big fire recently and would like to be assured that the NWR was learning from its recent experiences in this regard.

Secondly, the absence of rangers on patrol within the Park meant that there was little policing going on. It suggested to me that the aminals of secondary importance and this might be symptomatic of a neglect of the environmental conservation aspect of managing the park and that sadly it is increasingly looked upon by government as solely a cash cow." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"Officialdom
With one exception, officialdom was always courteous and polite, if often annoyingly slow.

At the vet fence north of Sehitwa in Botswana, we pulled slowly up to the white stop line on the road in front of the barrier as there were no vehicles in front. A policeman appeared and without explanation demanded a "fine" of 200 pula. He said we should have stopped at a stop sign which was propped up on bricks just a few feet earlier. After a polite stand-off, we left without paying. On discussing this incident at our next lodge, we were told that whilst on the spot fines are legal in Botswana, the amount demanded had been irregular. The consensus of opinion was that this had been a try on.

Suggestions for improvements:

We have been very satisfied, hence our repeat business. Off the cuff, we haven't any suggestions.

Overall
There were occasions when a 4WD vehicle could have been useful (but we don't know the cost).
This was our annual treatment for the 'Africa virus' and it worked very well (actually our eleventh trip to sub-Sahara Africa). Where next?" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"One of the best holiday we ever had!

Suggestions for improvements:

Can't really think of anything to be honest...." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"Great. Saw and experienced everything we had hoped to and trip lived up to expectations in full." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"We had a fabulous time on our trip to Namibia, it was truly one of the best holidays we've ever had. The planning was perfect, and there really wasn't a part of the holiday that we didn't have an amazing time at.

It's hard to pick 'favorites' but we both loved Nhoma Camp for the culture, amazing people and proper 'wild'life, Onguma Tented Camp for a secluded taste of luxury, driving ourselves around Etosha and seeing lionesses and cubs cross the road in front of us, and staying at Okakeujo and seeing black rhino at the waterhole at night.

Namibia is a wonderful, safe and special country. We would love to return and will definitely use Expert Africa again.

Suggestions for improvements:

The only thing I would suggest is perhaps giving visitors some guidance on how far in advance they need to be in touch with Expert Africa to book things at peak season. We left our booking until May (for a Sept/Oct) holiday, and because of this the stays at the restcamps were a little fiddly and we had to switch rooms.

Perhaps recommend when to get in touch to book for peak season on your website?" Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"We planned our trip a year and a half ahead of our travel date, which allowed us to book all the accommodation that we wanted to stay in at the places we wanted to visit. Maruska is fantastically knowledgeable and very friendly and always tried to match our wishes with the places that she knew would suit us. This proved very much the case with KTC. We were sad that Maruska had moved to New Zealand, by the time we returned, however, we had the pleasure of meeting Chris McIntyre and Tracy Lederer who were also very kind and helpful on our return.

Prior to our departure in addition to Chris' books and the brochure, the literature and the organization of the vouchers and pictures of the places we were staying at, were excellent. We often spent time at airports spotting EA travel tags!!!
We also met other travellers who were equally happy with their EA trip.

We had the most wonderful trip, which surpassed all our expectations. We would definitely recommend Expert Africa to anyone wishing to travel to Africa, particularly for making it such a personally tailored experience. We certainly will be using EA on our next trip!

Just to mention as well we had a very comfortable stay at the Brigadoon in Swakopmund run by a lovely called Margaret ." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 8 on a Namibia trip

"This was not a trip, certainly not a holiday (we returned exhausted !) it was a mind-and-soul-enhancing experience. We saw the hoped-for range of exotic plants and beasts, which alone was impressive. For two people who have only ever experienced elephant, ostrich and zebra in miserable enclosures at zoos, to see them roaming at liberty and (zebras) in such numbers was a privilege. The experience of such huge open spaces (coming from the land of the M6 and M1) was awe-inspiring - we feasted on the landscapes and wildernesses and dunes and beaches and rocks that we visited. This visit to Namibia, and the series of places we visited & stayed, refreshed our minds and souls, and affected us more strongly than any other foreign visit we have made, all assisted with nothing stronger than the occasional glass of wine !

We also had the luck and privilege to spend time with some extraordinary people, who enriched our lives incredibly: Wayne (Sandwich Bay), Petrus (Kulala), Lister (Doro Nawas).
Thank you for making this possible !

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

- Insist that the default vehicle for car hire will be a beefier vehicle than a Toyota Corolla, whenever significant stretches of gravel roads are to be used
- Don't use Air Namibia !
- Don't release unsuspecting Brits into Frankfurt airport !
- Inform clients what the 'toilet' arrangements are in each accommodation !!" Read full review: 22 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip