Top 10 Namibia Activities

Unaffected by light pollution, Namibia’s night sky is astonishingly beautiful. An enchanting inky blanket, aglow with the light of thousands of sparkling stars. Stargazing allows us to reconnect with the natural world and there’s no better place for it than the NamibRand Reserve, Africa’s only Gold Tier Dark Sky Reserve and one of the darkest places on the planet.

Sossusvlei Desert Lodge even has its own observatory, telescope and resident astronomer who will share their knowledge of the night skies with you. With a skylight directly above your bed too, the celestial experience will continue all night.

Towering red sand dunes, dry cracked earth, and ghostly trunks of dead trees form the stark beauty of Sossusvlei, one of Namibia’s most spectacular and best known attractions. The sand here is five million years old, tinged red by its iron oxide content and heaped to heights of over 80m.

To walk up famous Dune 45, the most photographically reproduced dune in the world, is strenuous but you are rewarded by panoramic vistas of the surrounding dune valley. These are some of the tallest dunes in the world, and yet they are soft and ever-shifting, as is the glorious light that illuminates them.

From the aerial perspective of a plane over the Namib Desert, along the Skeleton Coast, or through the Great Escarpment, you will come to know the country’s complex geology and fantastical landscapes in a way that’s impossible on the ground. We work with experienced aviator brothers Bertus and Andre Schoeman who grew up introducing visitors to the wonders of Namibia by air alongside their father.

They fly their small planes from Windhoek to some of the most alluring and remote bush camps and landscape locations, specialising in a four-day tour that is packed full of the best that Namibia has to offer.

For more than a century, the Etosha National Park has been a protected area on the rebound from the ravages of big-game hunting in the 19th century. Now largely recovered, its landscape is dominated by the Etosha Pan, the vast salt pan which forms part of the Kalahari Basin.

Dotted with waterholes, Etosha supports populations of elephant, giraffe, lion and leopard, alongside white rhino and black rhino and a variety of plains game. We recommend staying on some of the excellent private reserves bordering the national park where you can enjoy the most exclusive wildlife encounters.

At 160km long, as deep as 550m, and up to 27km wide in places, Fish River Canyon is the largest in Africa. Carved by the once mighty Fish River, the canyon is a maze of twisting gorges, incised plateaus and majestic rock formations. High temperatures put hiking into the canyon off-limits for much of the year, but between May and September it’s a place you can descend into with a permit.

For the most serious adventurers, we recommend that you take a specialist hiking guide who will organise camps and supplies along the way. Otherwise, there’s Fish River Lodge, perched on the rim of the canyon and open all year. From the deck of the lodge, you can gaze into the abyss and take walks into the surrounding 45,000 hectares of wilderness atop this marvel of the landscape.