Namibia: reviews from our travellers

"This was a second holiday booked with Expert Africa. For the first trip they were excellent, but this time not so good. Three comments -
1. this second trip was across two countries and Expert Africa staff seem organised by country. I was passed from one person to another and initially nobody seemed responsible for the whole trip
2. lack of answers to e-mails. On a couple of occasions I gave up waiting and had to phone
3. I booked 10 months in advance and even that far out some lodges were already fully booked. We were wait listed. A month before departure I contacted Expert Africa to make a final check of our wait list status and was somewhat surprised to find that in 10 months Expert Africa had not followed up on the bookings. By lucky chance only, we eventually got our first choice lodges, but only because I followed up" Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 8 on a Namibia trip

"It was an excellent holiday. Seeing the animals in their natural habitat was amazing. All the people that we met were extremely friendly and helpful
I hadn't appreciated that nearly all the roads would be gravel and quite how empty the country is. There are long distances where you don't see another car or anything else for that matter.

This is obviously just our opinion, but we didn't think that the dunes at Sossusvlei were worth the long drive!

We will return to Namibia but spend more time in Etosha." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"Our first trip to Africa and it went very smoothly and we really enjoyed it- on balance we had too much driving and too many short stays in the first week so we think we should have planned this a bit differently. Distances in the south are long and gravel roads slow and tiring. The second week at Damaraland Etosha and Okijima was absolutely superb in the timing and in what we saw." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"It was great to visit new places and to see old favourites once again. We loved the driving on the dirt roads - the freedom of it all and the distances that took us to some fantastic geological points of interest.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Make sure whover replaces Gwynneth is at least as good as her!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"Outstanding experience fully lived up to expectation. No regrets about anywhere we stayed.

Some of the travelling was tiring but we expected that. Some great roads, some pretty dire, especially western Etosha. People generally very friendly.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Excellent service.
Only (v minor) thing that didn't work out was that our pre-booked seats for the flights didn't materialise." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"This was our thirteenth trip with Expert Africa since 2006 (and we have two more in the pipeline), which speaks volumes in itself.

Once again, we found ourselves well-satisfied with EA's offering and the quality of service (including rapidly finding us overnight accommodation near the airport in Windhoek after a flight delay).

We enjoyed all the camps we went to and achieved most of our objectives (the pangolin, which we had hoped to see as there is research ongoing at one place we stayed, remaining unsurprisingly elusive).

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep up the good work!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"We have had an excellent holiday .

There were one or two minor problems which did not detract from the overall enjoyment and we do not live in a perfect world. We were impressed that Sabina went out of her way to contact us on the first day of the holiday when she found out that there had been a mishap with our transfer from the airport. Wilderness were also very apologetic and made us comfortable while we waited to be transferred to the guest house.

Confriming our flight departure times did seem to cause some difficulties with the various lodges but wasn't an issue that really impacted us. We found all the Wilderness Air pilots very friendly and reassuring and they provided us with great views and in a couple of instances made slight detours so we were able to see the best views. We certainly thought flying between lodges was a great way to see the country and to cover long distances quickly.

We were really impressed by Nambia as a country and how everybody worked together in harmony.

we throughly enjoyed the entire trip and hope to go back in the future. We will use Expert Africa again.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

The following are just suggestions they did not have a negative impact on our trip.

We were not prepared for how cold it was at times. Although this is covered in the information you provided the impact of the winds and the chill factor didn't register with us. Equally we were told that the weather had been exceptionally cold on occasions.

It might be useful to provide fuller explanations as to the exact nature of some of the activities at the lodges. In our case there were some instances where Chris , who has breathing difficutlies could not particiapte in them. Had we had more information we might have suggested that our length of stay at some lodges may have been changed." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"We enjoyed our trip very much. We would have preferred not to have gone to Halali, but to have had an additional day inn Swakopmund, as we did not have an opportunity to explore the town. Personally, we preferred the smaller lodges, i.e. up to 20 people. We enjoyed meeting the Namibian staff and finding our more about their country.

Our trip has inspired us to make a further visit to Africa.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We were told that credit cards would not be accepted throughout the country, but in fact they were. This needs to be amended in your information. Also, we would have liked a detailed breakdown of the individual costs in the quotation.

We will certainly recommend Expert Africa to our friends, and will be using you again." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip

"We found that the trip was well organised and most enjoyable and we would have no hestitaion in recommending your company . Our only minor problem was that we had expected lower temperature than experienced. We booked for the Sept period because from information given the average temperature was quoted at 25 C Max (ref: notes for travellers page 13). As soon as we left Windhoek
we were in the high 30's and it then it got to 40+. Are the temperatures quoted for Windhoek? At Vic Falls we saw a weather report and it was 25C in Windhoek but it was 41C in VF.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank your team for all of the support given and we would hope to travel with you again." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 11 on a Namibia trip

"Our trip as a whole was superb, from the initial contact with Sabina, to our arrival home.

We had enjoyed our visit so much 2 years ago, that we wanted to return, and see more. this could well have been an anti climax, but fortunately it wasn't. None of us have any regrets.

We noticed the effect of no rain for more that 2 years, very little greenery anywhere.

The unmade roads were in a bad condition, which we were told was due to the increase in large tourist transports.

The people, the accommodation and the food were as wonderful as we expected. Thank you Sabina for putting such a great trip together for us.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

A little caution is required when driving from Dolomite to Okaukuejo, especially in a 2x4 car. We were warned, by a frequent visitor, of very deep tyre ruts, at the start of the most direct route. We took the slightly longer southerly route (an extra12 Kms), which was fine.
We were also warned of the extremely large Anteater holes in the roads, some were 2 feet wide & 18 inches deep. Many could be seen, if driving at a sensible speed, as they had pile of earth beside them, but others were not visible until nearly on them! They need to be avoided, or the car would get stuck, and you could do serious damage!

There were none east of Okaukuejo." Read full review: 30 nights in Africa; 24 on a Namibia trip