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 Hoanib Valley Camp, 270 km, four to five hours. A morning nature drive with your guide, then north through open plains and mountain ranges past Palmwag and on through Sesfontein.

Hoanib Valley Camp sits in one of the most remote river valleys in the northwest, where desert-adapted elephant, giraffe and lion follow the dry riverbed toward the coast.

A full day in this remote, harsh and beautiful landscape with the camp's guides: rhino tracking, nature walks or a game drive along the riverbed.

The camp is a joint venture between local communities and the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, and time with the researchers working on the desert-adapted giraffe is part of the stay. Nothing here is guaranteed; the animals range across enormous distances, and the guides spend their lives learning where to look.

Hoanib Valley Camp to Opuwo, 210 km, three to four hours. After breakfast and a morning activity, back toward Sesfontein and then north to Opuwo.

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 Etosha Heights, 335 km, four to five hours, southeast toward the park's southern side.

Tonight is at Safarihoek Lodge, on the Etosha Heights Private Reserve along the park's boundary, home to black and white rhino. You arrive in the early afternoon in time for an afternoon game drive with your guide.

After breakfast, into the park at Andersson's Gate for a full morning's game drive. Your guide settles the entry fees and picks up a waterhole map, the single most useful thing to carry in Etosha.

Etosha holds 114 mammal species and 340 bird species. Two nights at Ongava, a 30,000-hectare private reserve on the park's southern boundary with resident white and black rhino, with the afternoon back in the park or on the reserve.

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 lunch 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 fully inclusive nights at Onguma The Fort, looking west over Fischer's Pan.

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 Onguma Reserve on the park's eastern boundary covers 34,000 hectares and holds four of the Big Five along with more than three hundred bird species. Its Onkolo hide sits at water level and is worth coming back to camp for in the middle of the day, and the evening sunset drive on the reserve looks west over Fischer's Pan.

Etosha East to Okonjima, 315 km, four to five hours. South via Otavi and Otjiwarongo to the Okonjima Nature Reserve, home of the AfriCat Foundation.

You arrive by two in the afternoon, in time for tea before the afternoon excursion. AfriCat has worked on large carnivore conservation in Namibia since the early 1990s and has moved over that time from rescue and rehabilitation toward the harder work of reducing conflict between farmers and predators. After dinner there is an optional visit to the night hide for nocturnal animals.

An early rise and a quick snack before the morning activity, either a visit to the AfriCat Foundation or a drive in the reserve, then back to camp for a full breakfast. Okonjima 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.