7 Days - Namibia Adventure Highlights Safari Tour

You’re collected from Windhoek International Airport and transferred to a centrally located guesthouse. After settling into your room and freshening up, you join the group for an Ancient San Skills tour, where you learn some of the skills passed down by the San people, one of the oldest living cultures in the world. It’s a unique chance to meet them and find out how they survived in an inhospitable desert environment. You return to your lodge in Windhoek in the early evening and enjoy dinner at the lodge restaurant or at one of the many excellent restaurants in town.

After an early wake-up for hot beverages and snacks you head north towards Etosha National Park, stopping at Otjiwarongo for a light packed lunch. You enter through Anderson Gate and take a leisurely game drive through the park, watching for predators and unusual Etosha wildlife. You reach your lodge inside the park as the sun is setting. It overlooks a floodlit waterhole, where game and birdlife gather for an evening drink, so you can watch the show from the comfort of the camp.

You wake early for hot beverages and a snack and leave for a sunrise game drive, when the park is quiet and the animals are most active. After breakfast at camp you head out again to explore more of this vast wilderness. You return to your lodge for a picnic lunch and a short break to freshen up. The afternoon takes you to the iconic Etosha Pan, a vast salt pan at the heart of the park, and on with the game drive in search of the Big 4. You reach Okaukuejo, known for its floodlit waterhole, in the late afternoon and leave the park as the sun is setting. Tonight you stay at a tented safari camp on the outskirts of Etosha.

After an early wake-up and a sunrise breakfast, you depart at 7:40am and drive through the communal lands of Damaraland. You stop at the Ugab River Bridge to visit the Herero women who run a small arts and crafts centre. Lunch is a picnic in the shadow of the Brandberg Mountain, with a short visit from a Himba group who sell their wares to passing tourists. The journey continues through the world-famous Namib Desert, with a short stop at one of the many ghostly shipwrecks on the Skeleton Coast. You arrive in the quaint seaside town of Swakopmund in the late afternoon, check in and spend the last hours of the day exploring on foot. For a much-needed drink, you join the group for sundowners at a restaurant on the jetty, looking out over the cold Atlantic. Dinner is at any of the town’s excellent restaurants at your own expense, and your guide will recommend the best ones.

After a leisurely breakfast you can join the group for one of the many optional activities in Swakopmund, such as quad biking, sandboarding, a dolphin cruise or a scenic flight along the Skeleton Coast to spot ancient shipwrecks. A special treat is a trip to Walvis Bay to see the famous flamingos in the lagoon, a protected Ramsar birding site. Optional activities are at your own expense and not included in the tour rate. You leave Swakopmund at 12:00 noon and drive to a desert safari camp near Sesriem, via Kuiseb Pass and Gaub Pass, with a stop to stretch your legs and take photos at the Tropic of Capricorn crossing. You arrive late in the afternoon, settle into your tented, ensuite accommodation and enjoy a sunset walk with views of the Naukluft mountains before dinner. Dinner is prepared by your guide and served under the stars around the camp firepit.

You wake early for hot beverages and snacks and set off to explore the main sights of Sossusvlei. Your first stop is Dead Vlei, renowned for its bleached, cracked clay pan and skeletal camel thorn trees, with the famous Namibian red dunes behind them. The dunes change colour as the sun rises and sets. After a comfortable hike around Dead Vlei you’re taken to the famed Sossusvlei dunes, where you enjoy a light picnic lunch and spend the rest of the time exploring on foot. In the late afternoon you return to your tented camp with stops en route at the world-famous Dune 45 or Big Daddy Dune. You can climb it if you’re fit enough, or simply walk around its massive base. The last activity of the day is a visit to Sesriem Canyon, one of the few permanent water sources in this arid region and a perfect spot for sundowners.

After a leisurely breakfast you visit a cheetah sanctuary at Solitaire, which cares for endangered cheetahs that were orphaned or injured and cannot be released back into the wild. You take a 1-hour drive around the sanctuary in an open safari vehicle, meeting the cheetahs and learning more about this beautiful species, and photographs with certain cheetahs are allowed. The tour leaves for Windhoek after lunch, with a brief pitstop at Bullsport Guest Farm and Rehoboth. You arrive in Windhoek in the late afternoon and are dropped off at your pre-booked accommodation in the city or at Windhoek International Airport. Please do not book flights out of Windhoek that depart before or close to 17:00.