19-Day Namibia Traverse Self-Drive Safari

Windhoek to the Kalahari, 245 km, roughly three to four hours. The road runs south out of the capital into the mixed tree and shrub savannah of the southern Kalahari, where huge red dunes cut across the property you are staying on. The Kalahari is 2.5 million square kilometres of semi-arid savannah, and its defining quality is not scenery but silence. The afternoon is at leisure. Optional guided walks here are led by San from the local community, and unlike a good deal of what gets sold as cultural tourism in southern Africa, these are worth doing. Game and nature drives are also available at the lodge.

Kalahari to Fish River Canyon, 440 km, seven to eight hours. This is the longest driving day of the trip and it is worth breaking properly. Head south through Mariental and Keetmanshoop into the Karas region, detouring to the Giant's Playground, an outcrop of balancing basalt boulders, and the Quiver Tree Forest, where several hundred aloes stand in a field of dolerite. The Fish River Canyon itself is the largest in Africa and forms part of the Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. It is not a wildlife destination, though mountain zebra, kudu and baboon are all present; it is a botanical one, with over a hundred endemic plant species and more than eighty tree species. If the light holds, take the viewpoint at sunset.

Fish River Canyon to Luderitz, 385 km, five to six hours. Take a morning canyon view before turning west through harsh, beautiful country that opens into desert plains as you approach the Atlantic. The route runs via Aus, where a population of feral horses has survived in the desert for a century and can often be seen from the road. Luderitz is one of the strangest towns in Namibia, founded on a bay where Bartolomeu Dias put in during 1487, transformed by a diamond rush and then abandoned by it when richer ground was found further south. Bavarian art nouveau buildings, an all-sand golf course, and some of the best seafood on the coast.

A full day in Luderitz. The essential excursion is Kolmanskop, the diamond town abandoned in the 1950s and now half-buried, with sand drifted waist-deep through ballrooms and hospital wards. It is the clearest demonstration in the country of how quickly the Namib takes ground back. The peninsula offers marine and desert wildlife, and Alte Villa runs kayak trips to Halifax Island, which is believed to be the northernmost point on the African coast where the African penguin breeds. African oystercatchers and Heaviside's dolphins are regular on the crossing. Lunches and dinners are at the restaurants in town, at your own arrangement.

Luderitz to Sossusvlei, 505 km, seven to eight hours, and the second of the long days. The route backtracks to Aus and then runs north via Helmeringhausen into the Namib-Naukluft. You are entering the oldest desert on earth, where star dunes with as many as five crests rise three hundred metres and rank among the largest anywhere. Your campsite is inside the park gate at Sesriem, which matters: it means an early start tomorrow without waiting for the public gate to open.

The full day in the dunes, and the reason to be camped inside the gate. Leave early for Sossusvlei, where the Tsauchab River gave up its attempt to reach the sea more than sixty thousand years ago and left a series of vast clay pans among the dunes. Work through the highlights: Sossusvlei itself, Deadvlei with its nine-hundred-year-old camelthorn skeletons standing on cracked white clay, Dune 45, Big Daddy and Elim Dune. Sesriem Canyon, cut by the same river and only two metres wide in places, is the afternoon. Return to camp for a rest, or take lunch into the dunes. Optional extras here include a guided Sossusvlei excursion, nature drives and a hot air balloon safari.

Sossusvlei to Swakopmund, 350 km, five to six hours. North to Solitaire, then west across the Tropic of Capricorn and through the Gaub and Kuiseb canyons onto the Namib gravel plains. The recommended routing detours via Ganab to the Welwitschia Plains, where individual plants of Welwitschia mirabilis have been growing for well over a thousand years, and the Moon Landscape. Swakopmund is a genuine oddity: Bavarian spires among palm trees, a lighthouse from 1902, German cake shops, and the adventure capital of Namibia all at once.

A full day on the coast. Walvis Bay's lagoon, thirty minutes south, is a Ramsar wetland and holds tens of thousands of flamingos along with pelicans and a resident Cape fur seal colony at Pelican Point. The outstanding excursion is Sandwich Harbour, where the dunes run straight into the Atlantic and which is reachable only by guided 4x4 on the tide. Other options include a dolphin and seal cruise, sea kayaking at Pelican Point, dune quad biking and sandboarding. Lunch and dinner at a cafe overlooking the sea, at your own arrangement.

Swakopmund to Damaraland, 445 km, seven to eight hours. North along the Skeleton Coast via Henties Bay to the Cape Cross seal colony, one of the largest Cape fur seal breeding colonies in the world and, depending on the season, home to well over a hundred thousand animals. Stop at the lichen fields, which look like bare gravel until water is poured on them, and the shipwreck between Wlotzkasbaken and Henties Bay. Then inland through open plains to Uis and north to Twyfelfontein, where more than two thousand rock engravings make up the finest prehistoric rock art in southern Africa and the country's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Organ Pipes, Burnt Mountain and the Damara Living Museum are all within reach.

Damaraland to Opuwo, 340 km, five to six hours. North via Palmwag, crossing the Hoanib River and climbing over the Joubert Pass into Kaokoland, the most isolated and least developed quarter of a country that is mostly isolated and undeveloped. This is desert-adapted elephant and black rhino country, and the conservancy system that protects them here is one of the genuine conservation successes in Africa. Opuwo is the regional centre, a small town where Himba, Herero, Damara and Owambo people share the same streets and the same shops. If you arrive with time, a Himba homestead visit can be arranged this afternoon through the lodge, which we would strongly encourage over stopping at roadside villages: arranged visits go through a local guide who knows the family, and the money reaches them.

Opuwo to Epupa Falls, 180 km, around three hours, and the shortest driving day of the trip. The road runs north to the Angolan border, where the Kunene River drops through a mile-wide series of falls up to thirty-seven metres high, framed by baobabs clinging to the rock. This is one of the wildest and least visited corners of Namibia. Two nights here, with a full day set aside.

A full day on the Kunene. Mornings are when Himba homesteads are most active, and a visit to one or two of them, arranged through the camp with a guide who has a standing relationship with the family, is the right way to do this. We ask guests to take the camp's guidance on photography rather than assuming, and to buy directly from the women who make the jewellery rather than through intermediaries. The rest of the day holds a guided walk in search of Kunene crocodiles, seasonal rafting, birding along the riverine strip, and a sundowner drive to the hill above the falls.

Epupa Falls to western Etosha, 375 km, around five hours. Backtrack to Opuwo, then east and south toward the western side of the park.

Tonight is spent outside Etosha rather than in it. Hobatere sits on a private concession on the park's western boundary, which means game drives run on the reserve rather than inside the national park, and they go out in the afternoon or after dark. You arrive in the afternoon with time to take one. Lunches are at your own arrangement.

A full morning's self-drive game drive east through the park to Okaukuejo, then out through Andersson Gate on the southern boundary.

Pay your entry fee on the way in and buy a waterhole map at the camp shop, which is the single most useful thing you can carry in Etosha. The park holds 114 mammal species and 340 bird species. Tonight is spent at Etosha Village, two kilometres outside the gate, so the evening is yours rather than at the floodlit waterhole. Lunches are at your own arrangement.

A full day's game drive from the southern side of the park to the eastern boundary, taking it slowly and stopping at waterholes along the way. Take a snack or a lunch and eat it overlooking one of them.

The eastern side is flat endless plain and tree savannah, a different landscape from the south. Tonight and tomorrow are at Mushara, a bush camp on Etosha's eastern side where meals come out on the veranda and a fire is lit in the evening. Lunches are at your own arrangement.

A full day for game viewing, either driving all day or splitting into morning and afternoon with a rest between. These are self-drive game drives, though you can arrange to go out in an open vehicle with an Onguma guide. Back at camp the 34,000-hectare Onguma Reserve offers an interpretive bush walk, the Onkolo Hide, and its own game drives, and the restaurant looks over a waterhole. Four of the Big Five are on the reserve along with more than three hundred bird species.

Etosha East to Otjiwa, 330 km, four to five hours. South via Otavi and Otjiwarongo into the Waterberg region.

Otjiwa is the oldest private game farm in Namibia and carries around 25 game species including white rhino, sable and roan. Sundowner drives, game walks, rhino tracking on foot and night drives are all arrangeable on arrival. Lunches are at your own arrangement.

An early rise for the optional morning activity, then a full breakfast before departure. Otjiwa to Windhoek is 225 km, three to four hours.

Return the vehicle in Windhoek, where the rental is closed out, and transfer to Hosea Kutako International Airport. Allow generously: the airport is a forty-five minute to one hour drive from the city and check-in closes two hours before departure.