Day 1 - Flight to Namibia
A scheduled overnight flight from London Heathrow, via Johannesburg in South Africa, to Windhoek with South African Airways begins your Ultimate Namibia Journey.
Includes dinner on the flight.
Day 2 - Windhoek
After arriving in Namibia and clearing customs at Windhoek Airport, you are transferred to a comfortable guesthouse in one of the town's leafy suburbs. Our colleagues in Namibia are easily contactable and happy to discuss your trip and answer any queries you might have. Lunch and dinner are at your own expense; this allows you to choose from Windhoek's many good restaurants.
Includes breakfast on the flight.
Days 3 - Namib-Naukluft Park
After breakfast, your safari guide collects you at 09.00 for the journey over the escarpment and down towards the dune-fields of the Namib Desert. Your base for the next two nights is Hoodia Desert Camp nestled on the banks of the Tsauchab River, and overlooked by the impressive Naukluft Mountains. Accommodation is in spacious thatched bungalows, each with an en-suite open-air bathroom and a private balcony.
The camp is situated a relatively short drive from the edge of the Namib Desert. The Namib is one of the world's oldest deserts, and your guide introduces you to the flora and fauna that have specially adapted to life here. There's a sprinkling of large animals, from gemsbok and springbok to fleeting ostrich, as well as an abundance of amazing smaller life forms - living rocks, dancing spiders, sand-diving lizards and fog-basking beetles!
Windhoek to Hoodia Desert Camp: approx. 5½ hours (330km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 4 - Namib-Naukluft Park
Use the whole day to explore in and around the Namib-Naukluft National Park with your guide. An early start takes you deeper into the desert for a spectacular sunrise. You make for Sossusvlei, where many of the dunes tower up to 300 metres above the Tsauchab Valley. There's much to see by walking around here; Namibia's Namib-Naukluft Park is one of the largest conservation areas in the world, so it covers an amazing diversity of desert landscapes. You find not only great dune-fields, but also wind-sculpted rock formations, fossil valleys, arid scrub areas and smooth gravel plains. Visit Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei and climb some of the highest free-standing dunes in the world before enjoying a delicious brunch under a camelthorn tree. Return, via spectacular Sesriem Canyon, to the desert camp, where you've time to relax before dinner.
Hoodia Desert Camp to Sossusvlei to Hoodia Desert Camp: approx. 2½ hours (175km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 5 - Swakopmund
After breakfast, you travel north and west. Much of your journey is through contrasting areas of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. Your route to the coast offers a series of spectacular views as you cross the desert plains before descending into the depths of the Gaub and Kuiseb Canyons and climbing back out again. Around mid-afternoon, you arrive at your comfortable guesthouse, centrally situated in Swakopmund, with time to wander around this pleasant coastal town or take a short siesta.
Your guide knows the restaurants well, so this evening takes you to one of his/her favourites; often the Tug restaurant by the old jetty. This is your chance to sample the excellent local seafood that this area of Namibia is known for.
Notes: You have the option to include a spectacular sunrise balloon flight over the desert before you depart for Swakopmund. The cost for this is approximately GBP £340 per person and includes approximately 50 minute balloon flight followed by a champagne breakfast in the desert.
As an alternative to the drive from Hoodia Desert Camp to Swakopmund, you may opt to take a scenic flight transfer. This would take you over the Namib Desert and along part of the Skeleton Coast; flying over vast dune fields, abandoned mining camps, shipwrecks, Sandwich harbor and salt pans before landing at Swakopmund Airport. You will then be transferred to your guesthouse where your guide will meet you later in the day. There will be an additional cost of between about GBP £250 and £570 for this flight transfer. The final costs depend on how many guests share the cost of the 5-seater light aircraft - the more passengers there are, the cheaper it is.
Hoodia Desert Camp to Swakopmund: approx. 6 hours (345km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 6 - Swakopmund
This morning you drive south to Walvis Bay, for a dolphin cruise around the outer lagoon. There's a lot to see in these cold, rich Atlantic waters off the coast of Namibia, including Cape fur seals, heaviside and bottlenose dolphins, pelicans, flamingos and a wide variety of sea birds. The trip includes snacks aboard, along with some fresh local oysters and champagne.
You usually head back to Swakopmund around midday for an afternoon at leisure, perhaps checking out the town's museums, curio markets and other attractions. The day ends with dinner in one of the many good restaurants.
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 7 - Damaraland
Leaving Swakopmund early, you travel first along part of the infamous Skeleton Coast. Then you turn inland, across one of the Namibia desert's harshest, flattest areas, before gradually climbing up into the beautiful mountains of Damaraland. As always whilst on this lodge safari, you stop periodically for your guide to show you points of interest, and to explain the changes of landscapes, flora and fauna that occur as the desert gives way to relatively verdant mountains.
You stay in the heart of this region at the relatively new Camp Kipwe. The camp is made up of comfortable, thatched chalets, with private open-air bathrooms, nestled amongst an outcrop of giant granite boulders.
Swakopmund to Twyfelfontein: approx. 6 hours (315km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 8- Damaraland
After an early breakfast you will be treated to an exciting 4WD nature drive along the ephemeral Aba Huab river valley. This is a remarkable region and offers some of the most beautiful scenery found in Namibia. At certain times of year the Aba Huab River valley is a ribbon of vegetation in an otherwise barren landscape. This food source attracts a variety of desert-adapted wildlife including elephant, giraffe and kudu. Whilst you drive and enjoy the magnificent scenery, your guide will be on the lookout for signs of the special desert-adapted game that can be found here. You will return to Camp Kipwe for lunch and time to relax during the heat of the day. Later in the afternoon you may visit some of the interesting sites of southern Damaraland that you didn't experience the previous day, including the ancient Bushman rock art at Twyfelfontein and the 'Organ Pipe' rock formations.
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 9 - Hobatere Lodge
In the morning you head off to one of the country's premier game areas: Hobatere, a private reserve of 320km² bordering western Etosha National Park. This is where the real wildlife experience on your Namibia lodge safari begins and from your base in one of the comfortable bungalows, you explore the reserve with excellent guides on 4WD game drives and night drives. There is a wide variety of big game, from elephant and giraffe to oryx, eland and springbok. The main predators are lion, leopard, cheetah and hyena. On a night drive you often spot the nocturnal animals including aardvark, aardwolf, genet, Cape fox and bat-eared fox. Hobatere Lodge is run by Steve Braine, one of Namibia's leading bird experts; it's a sought-after destination for ornithologists.
Twyfelfontein to Hobatere: approx. 4½ hours (315 km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 10 & 11 - Etosha National Park
Today you drive east, through the western gate into Namibia's Etosha National Park. We have a special permit for this remote side of the park, from which normal tourist traffic is prohibited. After a long game drive, you stop for two nights at either Okaukuejo or Halali Camp; here you stay in simple en-suite rooms or bungalows. Both restcamps are superbly located within the Etosha National Park, making them perfect bases from which to explore.
Time your days here like the predators: rising early to hunt for animals, resting in the middle of the day, and then heading out again in the mid-afternoon. After dinner at the camp's restaurant you can slope off with a drink to watch more game at the floodlit waterhole beside camp.
Game drives.
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 12 - Okonjima
After breakfast and an early-morning game drive in Etosha National Park, you leave for the Okonjima reserve and the luxury lodge accommodation of Okonjima Bush Camp. Okonjima is home to the AfriCat Foundation, which has long been involved with the conservation of Namibia's big predators, especially its cheetah, but also leopard and hyena. You can learn more about the rescue, relocation and education work of the AfriCat Foundation, as well as getting close to some of its many big cats. Other activities available from the lodge include nature drives, bird watching and visits to their night hide - where honey badgers, porcupines and other small nocturnal animals often appear. The photographic opportunities at Okonjima can be matchless and this is a wonderful highlight to end your Namibia lodge safari on.
Southern Etosha to Okonjima: approx. 3½ hours (250km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 13 - Windhoek
You have time for a morning activity and a tasty brunch at Okonjima before your return journey to Windhoek. You will arrive back at your guesthouse in the early afternoon with time to relax. You can choose from one of Windhoek's many good restaurants for dinner.
Okonjima to Windhoek: approx. 3 hours (235km)
Includes breakfast and brunch.
Day 14 - Flight to London
After a leisurely morning, you will be met at the guesthouse and transferred to Windhoek Airport in time for your overnight flight, via Johannesburg, to the UK.
Includes breakfast. Dinner is on the flight.
Day 15 - Arrive in London
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