Namibia's Wild North Private Guided Safari

Windhoek to Sossusvlei, 350 km, five to six hours. There is time after breakfast to pick up anything you need in town before your guide heads south over either the Spreetshoogte or the Remhoogte Pass, both of which drop off the escarpment with the whole of the Namib laid out below.

You are entering the oldest desert on earth. Star dunes with as many as five crests rise three hundred metres here and rank among the largest anywhere, and the valleys between them hold clay pans left when the Tsauchab River gave up trying to reach the sea more than sixty thousand years ago.

An early breakfast and out to the Sesriem Gate for the full day in the dunes: Sossusvlei itself, Deadvlei with its nine-hundred-year-old camelthorn skeletons 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, completes the day.

Return to the lodge for lunch through the heat of the middle of the day, or take a packed lunch out among the dunes, then back in the late afternoon. A hot air balloon flight over the sand sea and nature drives can both be arranged as extras.

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 route runs in via Walvis Bay, or on the recommended detour via Ganab to the Welwitschia Plains, where individual plants 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. Two nights here.

A full day set aside for the coast. Walvis Bay's lagoon, thirty minutes south, is a Ramsar wetland holding tens of thousands of flamingos along with pelicans and a Cape fur seal colony at Pelican Point.

The options are wide: a dolphin and seal cruise, Sandwich Harbour by 4x4 where the dunes run straight into the Atlantic, sea kayaking, dune quad biking and sandboarding. These are extras booked locally. Lunch and dinner are at your own arrangement, at a cafe or restaurant over the sea.

Swakopmund to Damaraland, 445 km, seven to eight hours. North via Henties Bay to the Cape Cross seal colony, one of the largest Cape fur seal breeding colonies in the world, with stops at the lichen fields and the shipwreck between Wlotzkasbaken and Henties Bay, then inland across open plains through Uis to Twyfelfontein.

Twyfelfontein holds more than two thousand rock engravings, the finest prehistoric rock art in southern Africa and Namibia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the Organ Pipes and Burnt Mountain close by. Time permitting, your guide takes the 4x4 into the dry Huab River to look for desert-adapted elephant, and the Damara Living Museum is worth an hour. Lunch is at your own cost.

Twyfelfontein to Palmwag, 110 km, an hour and a half to two hours. The morning is for whatever you missed at Twyfelfontein, or a nature drive with your guide, then north through open plains and mountain ranges to the veterinary fence close to Palmwag Lodge.

Palmwag sits at the edge of one of the largest conservation areas in the country, a stony red landscape between Kaokoland and the Skeleton Coast that is home to desert-adapted elephant, black rhino and lion. Two nights here.

A full day in the concession: a guided hike, a morning or full day exploring with your guide, and a sundowner drive as the light goes. The landscape is stony, red and open, with springs and dry riverbeds that concentrate the wildlife.

Desert-adapted elephant range enormous distances here and are never guaranteed, but the same country holds giraffe, Hartmann's mountain zebra, oryx and springbok, and Palmwag works with Save the Rhino Trust on the black rhino that live here. Lunch is at your own cost.

Palmwag to Opuwo, 235 km, three to four hours. North across the Hoanib River and up over Joubert Pass.

Opuwo is the centre of Kaokoland, where Himba, Herero, Damara and Owambo people live side by side. If there is time this afternoon, the hotel arranges a visit to a Himba homestead with a local guide who knows the family. We do not stop at roadside villages, and nobody is photographed without being asked.

The morning is the best time for a Himba homestead visit if you did not go yesterday. Then Opuwo to western Etosha, 200 km, three to four hours, east and then south.

Tonight is at Hobatere, on a community-owned concession just outside the park's western boundary, known as little Etosha for its game and birdlife. You arrive in the early afternoon, with an afternoon or evening game drive on the concession available as an extra.

After breakfast, into the park through Galton Gate for a full morning's game drive east to Okaukuejo, then out through Andersson's Gate to Etosha Village, just beyond it. Your guide settles the entry fees and picks up a waterhole map, the single most useful thing to carry in Etosha.

In the afternoon, back into the park with your guide. Etosha holds 114 mammal species and 340 bird species, and two nights here give you a full day tomorrow.

A full day for game viewing, either out all day or split into morning and afternoon drives with your guide and a rest between. The waterholes on the southern side reward patience more than distance.

In the dry months the springs along the southern edge of the pan concentrate the wildlife in a way few parks anywhere can match.

A full day's game drive from the southern side of Etosha to the eastern boundary, taking it slowly and stopping at waterholes along the way, with a picnic at one of them.

Etosha's 4,800 square kilometre salt pan concentrates the wildlife in the dry months, when the vegetation thins and the springs along the southern edge of the pan draw everything in. The eastern side is flat endless plain and tree savannah, reached through the Von Lindequist Gate, named for the governor who proclaimed the reserve in 1907. Two nights at Mushara, a bush camp on Etosha's eastern edge.

A full day for game viewing, either out all day or split into morning and afternoon drives with your guide and a rest at camp between.

The eastern side of the park is quieter than the south, with Fischer's Pan and the Namutoni waterholes within easy reach of the gate. Evenings at camp end at the fire, which is where the day's sightings get compared.

Etosha East to Otjiwa, 330 km, four to five hours. South via Otavi and Otjiwarongo to Otjiwa, a private game farm carrying around twenty-five species including white rhino, sable and roan.

Sundowner drives, game walks, rhino tracking on foot and night drives can be booked at the lodge, and the Ombu village twenty kilometres away offers an afternoon with an Ovaherero guide over lunch. These are optional extras. Lunch is otherwise at your own cost.

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

Your guide drops you at Hosea Kutako International Airport in time for your flight. The airport is forty-five minutes to an hour beyond the city and check-in closes two hours before departure, so flights from mid afternoon onward work best.