The landscapes of Namibia are "monumental" in scale. You can drive across the country's wilderness areas for hours without passing another vehicle, and yet, in recent years, "incredible" lodges have opened in some of its most remote corners. My husband and I chose a road trip around Namibia as our first "long-haul family trip", said Gemma Bowes in The Times.
It proved to be just the sort of "big adventure" we'd been hoping for. On a ten-day loop from the capital city, Windhoek, we covered about a thousand miles, and only once found ourselves driving after dark (something to avoid as animals often lie on the "sun-warmed" roads at night). At Dead Valley Lodge, we watched the towering dunes of Sossusvlei change colour at sunrise – "crimson, straw and dried apricot" – and the children ran barefoot across them, "leaping and sliding" in sand "as soft as powdered milk".
Nearby lies Dead Vlei, the "ghost" of an ancient lake in whose "jigsaw-cracked" mud the skeletal remains of millennia-old trees still stand, having been charred by the sun before they could decompose. At Okonjima, we were transfixed for 20 "magical" minutes by the sight of a leopard stalking a herd of antelope; and at Kwessi Dunes, we saw ostriches, zebra, and oryx with "theatrical spiral horns", and at night gazed through a telescope at the Milky Way, which appeared as bright as "strip lighting".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The "sea-misted" town of Swakopmund provided a "surreal" interlude, with its bierkellers and Bavarian-style architecture – a legacy of German colonial rule. From there, we drove to Damaraland, passing stalls run by Himba women, their bodies painted in red ochre, and Herero women in floor-length gowns. In the region's rocky desert, we spotted elephant and giraffe, but equally "fascinating" was the Damara Living Museum, where local people demonstrate ancient hunter-gatherer traditions, and explain them in the click language of Khoekhoe.
Expert Africa (expertafrica.com) has a ten-night trip from £11,168 for a family of four.
-
Saudi Arabia could become an AI focal pointUnder the Radar A state-backed AI project hopes to rival China and the United States
-
What you need to know about last-minute travelThe Week Recommends You can book an awesome trip with a moment’s notice
-
Codeword: October 29, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Everything you need to know about last-minute travel
The Week Recommends You can book an awesome trip with a moment’s notice
-
Book review: ‘Joyride: A Memoir’Feature A journalist’s story of how she chased and accomplished her dreams
-
Art Review: Downtown/Uptown: New York in the EightiesFeature Lévy Gorvy Dayan, New York City, through Dec. 13
-
R&B singer D’AngeloFeature A reclusive visionary who transformed the genre
-
Kiss guitarist Ace FrehleyFeature The rocker who shot fireworks from his guitar
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Dry skin, begone! 8 products to keep your skin supple while traveling.The Week Recommends Say goodbye to dry and hello to hydration
