Namibia: reviews from our travellers

"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

"Fantastic trip, with a great set of selections as camps for our party.

Although some camps (Etosha Safari Lodge & Andersson's Camp) could not provide suitable game to view, their facilities were very good and to a high standard - however, the Etosha Mountain View Lodge exceeded our expectations - great service, facilities and guiding." Read full review: 6 nights in Africa; 6 on a Namibia trip

"Apart from some minor glitches, we had a great trip in a beautiful sparsly populated country with friendly people. We would like to come back to visit other parts of this amazing country. One of the difficulties we faced was travelling long distances on the gravel roads as our rental vehicle was not the best 4x4 in existence.

We also felt that the itinerary around Etosha was not well advised given that we travelled around the park twice and across it once. it would have been much better to advise us to stay outside of the park at the western and central gates and done two or three day trips. We would have seen just as much without the hours and discomfort of additional travel.

We found the itinerary information provided very useful to follow eg estimated hours of the journey, though some details and advice need updating..

Overall it was a fantastic holiday in a great country" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"We had the absolute best honeymoon ever!!

Namibia is an incredible and varied country and the itinerary enabled us to experience as much of this beautiful country as possible in two weeks. You can tell that a huge amount of work has gone into planning these trips and itineraries - it was perfectly paced for us, with the right amount of time in each place and wonderful places to stay. The Etosha part of the trip was especially well planned, with a base in the East and then in the South it meant that we could cover a good proportion of the Park, and one of our 'travel days' was also a full day within the Park which was fantastic.

There was plenty of driving but it never felt too much, especially as we shared the driving, which was a big positive.

All of the places we stayed were incredibly welcoming, with excellent food and some really luxurious touches.

As we are usually quite independent travellers, we really welcomed the fact that we were booked mainly on a half board basis, as we were very happy to drive ourselves around Etosha and the attractions in Damaraland and Swakop/Walvis Bay, so this worked perfectly for us. But we were very pleased that the excursion at Hoodia was included as it was fantastic and we wouldn't have fancied driving ourselves on the sand.

All of the communication we have received throughout the process has been first class. The travel guide was an invaluable companion which is now looking very well used!

Thank you for making our honeymoon so memorable." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"It was amazing! We had a wonderful time, especially in Botswana. The scenery and the lodges in Namibia were exceptional but our enjoyment of them was tempered by the poor condition of many of the unmaintained gravel roads. The government should get on to this if they are serious about the importance of tourism to their economy." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"We really enjoyed this holiday and had may memorable days. Staff at the lodges were all so friendly and helpful. The guides were all very knowledgeable. The self driving although long and dusty always felt safe and easy to navigate.Taking a Cool Bag from home was essential and careful planning of fuel and lunch stops was needed as facilities were few and far between." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"We had a wonderful trip. We loved Namibia, the diversity of its landscapes, animals, birds and flora, and in particular the friendly welcome and fantastic level of service almost everywhere.

We only saw snakes in display tanks, and a single dead spider in a bin (so happy, happy days for two members of the family) but we were thrilled with the rest of our wildlife experiences and will never forget our sadly-too-short visit to Namibia.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Can't fault Expert Africa.

Tracy was knowledgeable, patient, had lots of common sense, honest advice and inspiring ideas. Thanks Tracy!" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"We were very impressed with the Local Agents everywhere#

We had 11 flights. We travelled to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. We travelled into and out of Jo'Burg in South Africa 3 x times

We had countless Border crossings and 5 pages were completely used up in on new (thankfully) passports----more than 5 pages would have been used up, had the Immigration Staff everywhere, been less considerate and using up pages, rather than constantly stamping new pages!

Every Local Agent arrived early to meet us and took all the hassle out of all the numerous border crossings, particularly on the Chobe River on the boat, where you have to pass through Nambia and Botswana on entering and leaving!

In the end the trip is as good as the Local Agents, and the Local Agents that Expert Africa used were suberb, efficient and charming

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Well done Amanda. A wonderful trip, very efficiently organised and with great detail

All of our requests were realised on the day and we thank you for all your very hard work" Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zambia safari

"Excellent overall. Wonderful experiences in a wonderful country.

Tracy is always, polite, friendly and keen to provide the best service and advice to make the trip as successful as possible." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 11 on a Namibia trip

"Our trip exceeded our high expectations for bucket list safari experience. Tracy, our coordinator at Expert Africa was easy to work with and tailored the trip to meet our needs. We appreciated that she had first hand knowledge of the camps that added weight to her recommendations.

In retrospect we should have added a couple extra days with no activities planned so that we could recharge our batteries. Ideally this would have been done in Namibia due to the stratospheric high cost of the lodges in Botswana.

Our Day trip to Sandwich Harbour was fantastic, and if we had to choose we would have ranked it higher than a scenic flight over the dunes. We had the best of both worlds as we needed to fly from Hoodia to Swakopmund so the excursion over the dunes was a no brainer addition." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 7 on a Namibia trip