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Namibia Pictures
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explore namibia tours

Explore! offers 11 adventures, treks, wildlife tours and family holidays in Namibia until August 2009. e.g: Brochure | SW Africa Overland | Desert to Delta [incl.Botswana] | Namibia Safari [families] | Namibia Highlights

desert driving in Namibia

The road from Damaraland to the coast, Namibia, July [winter].
Click on an image - above or below - for more Namibia pictures.

Namibia is an African country that ranks highly - if not the highest - in most experienced travellers list of great hits. Primary targets are the fantastically wildlife-rich Etosha National Park, the staggeringly huge and beautifully pink dunes at Sossusvlei, the massed horizon to horizon yellow dunes of the Namib Desert and its cute oasis towns such as Swakopmund, the bleak, seal-stuffed shores of the Skeleton Coast, ancient rock carvings in Damaraland and Fish River Canyon hikes. And that's not all...
In addition the prices are reasonable, the weather is sunny, tourists are relatively few, the pictures are unbeatable and safety concerns not too bad, though drivers should take special care!
Some sample photos:

namibia dunes

Climb the magnificent
Sossussvlei dunes

etosha wildlife safaris

Drive yourself wild on safari
in animal packed Etosha

namibia rock art

See ancient San
bushman rock art

namib desert driving

Drive quad bikes in
the Namib Desert

Self-drive around this big, arid country is very tempting. The roads are wide and empty, cars are not too expensive and the scenery - at least in the west half of the country - is staggeringly beautiful, at times reminiscent of USA's Monument Valley. Throw in the must-see, self-drive Etosha wildlife park and car hire seems the obvious way to go. However...
Distances between major sights are huge, so you can expect to be driving at least 300 kilometres [200 miles] a day. If this was just on Namibia's hardtop, straight roads, no worries, but most of the driving will be on gravel roads since only 11% are tarred roads.
This leads to three problems.
One, gravel travel is relatively slow, noisy and tiring.
Two, for those inexperienced in this kind of locomotion, it's easy to find yourself hammering along a long, wide, empty road at 120kph [75mph] - there's no traffic and it's a long way to go after all, you're cruising in a trance state enjoying the arid, rocky views, and then a bend appears - no worries mate, it's a wide road - but, just a second, there's no grip, you're going sideways! Aaaarggh!
Which leads us neatly to Three, expenses incurred when returning your now substantially less smart vehicle. They could be huge. As a small example the previous owner of the Bug's car was charged for $2,000 damage after he drove too close to another car and the front end got shredded by road chips.

Moral of the story: If you rent a car in Namibia, get the fullest possible insurance, rent the most damaged car you can find and ensure that the damage is fully recorded.
And carry cash - South African Rand is fine - as gas stations do not usually accept credit cards.

Images: Etosha Safari Wildlife Pictures | Swakopmund Pictures

Namib Desert | Sossusvlei | Damaraland | Skeleton Coast

Travel Guides: Namibia Travel Guide | Namibia Map | Africa Map | Namibia Tours

Namibia Pictures © 2005 Julian Loader. All rights reserved.

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Photos of alternative wildlife destinations:

South Africa [Kruger] | Madagascar | Kenya | Australia Wildlife | Galapagos | Costa Rica