7 unique experiences in Namibia

For you I asked seven bloggers to share their unique experiences in Namibia with you. The enthusiasm and number of feedback was great, so I was spoilt for choice. Finally I am happy about seven different reports about unforgettable experiences in Namibia. From north to south, east to west – across the country are the reports.

Ina takes you to the ghost town Kolmanskuppe in the south and with Lynn you experience a Bushman Walk in the Naukluft Mountains. Instead of the Big Five, join Ina on a search for the Little Five in the desert. If you like cheetahs, you can’t miss the explorer stories report about their visit to the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Of course, Etosha National Park can’t be missed – Thomas shows you his favorite photo stops. Miriam will give you an introduction to fossils in Namibia and Sabine will take you on a hike in Klein-Aus.

Kolmanskop – A ghost town in the middle of the desert

Hi, I’m Katja and since 2008 I’ve been taking my readers to the most beautiful places in the world in my wellness travel magazine WellSpa-Portal – this year crowned with the MUCBook award as Travel Blog 2019. So everyone will find valuable tips for enjoyable, relaxed travels with the necessary portion of wellness. Time out with pleasure factor.

Do not live by the clock, but with the compass…..

this is how experiences and moments arise that leave you breathless, fascinate and enrich you.

In June 2018, I was able to fulfill a long-held dream and do an almost five-week self-drive tour of Namibia; enjoying is actually a better word in this context.

We had the route defined by an agency, beautiful lodges were already booked and so we started from Windhoek. On many stages, because we wanted to experience Slow Travel we went via Mariental, Keetmanshoop, the Fish River Canyon to Aus. We had planned a few relaxed days, because from here we had day trips to Luderitz and surroundings, hiking to the wild horses and the ghost town Kohlmanskop on the plan. But more about that later.

We explored many different and fascinating regions and were amazed every day how diverse Namibia is. We watched soccer with the locals, realized how much sea seals can stink and how crafty seagulls are when it comes to their food. Changing tires became a permanent activity and the visit to the white elephants had a lasting effect on me.

But what really impressed me is the story of a small, livable oasis in hostile desert region. Almost 300 mostly German families have created the diamond village Kolmannskuppe 15 km away from Luderitz.Surrounded by desert, a masterpiece of German architecture was built, because the people here should lack nothing when collecting diamonds.

1911 Kolmannskuppe was connected to the electricity of Luderitz. A desalination plant took over the fresh water supply and the fascinating infrastructure included a swimming pool and school as well as a casino, restaurant, gymnasium and theater. Not to forget also the first X-ray of Southern Africa. But that had, besides a raison d’etre for the health ones, mainly the sense to detect smuggled diamonds.

The whole story of Kolmanskop, personal fates and what is slowly becoming of the small town today, you can read at WellSpa-Portal under “Ghost town in the diamond desert”. Because what you can’t do today with the Berlin airport over years, back then in Namibia buildings were completed much faster.

My tip: What I can only recommend to everyone is to travel outside the season. Admittedly, I am free in my time management and enjoy it always very anticyclical to be on the road. Also for Namibia it was great in June weather-wise and especially because of the few people.

But what I can absolutely recommend to everybody – even if I heard all the time: a small 4 x4 car like the Duster is completely sufficient – no, no, no. From my own experience, I would definitely invest a little more money in the car. It’s a sh… feeling, when the spare wheel is already patched in the trunk, you bump over stony tracks in the nowhere and suddenly the next tire is flat. Not to mention the ride comfort. Never before has my husband cursed so much at the wheel. Believe me, the Namibia fun is significantly higher with a larger, off-road car.

Unforgettable: Nowhere else in the world have I seen these fascinating colors, in places heard or smelled absolutely nothing and never again will I forget my encounter with a white baby elephant in the wild. I do not know if it is true, but there is supposed to be a so-called Africa virus, which makes constantly longing for the continent as symptoms.

This article about Kolmanskop was written for you by Katja from WellSpaPortal. Here you can find her blog WellSpaPortal and here the detailed report about Kolmanskuppe. Have a look!

In search of the “Little Five

I am Ina, live in Dusseldorf and run the blog genussbummler.de. There I write about my enjoyable road trips and city trips. In September 2017, I traveled to southern Africa for four weeks. During this time I spent three weeks in Namibia, made a side trip to the Victoria Falls and spent 5 days in the Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta.

My tour through Namibia was my first trip in this great country. My road trip took me to Fish River Canyon, Luderitz, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Etosha National Park to the Caprivi Strip. You can read my complete route here. During this self-drive tour I was on the road with a four-wheel drive vehicle.

One of my favorite experiences in Namibia was the Little Five Safari, which I would like to tell you about.

If you travel to Namibia and go on safari, you usually go in search of the Big Five. But elephant, rhino and co are standard on a trip to Africa. But something special is the search for the Little Five. During a half day tour in the dunes outside Swakopmund you have the chance to find the five little animals.

During the tour you will learn a lot about the landscape of the Dorob National Park and its inhabitants. You learn e.g. how the animals survive on desert muesli and fog milk and how they all depend on each other. It is also interesting that the dark stripes in the sand, which you can see everywhere, are not traces of pollution, but iron. This is illustrated with a simple magnet.

With a lot of patience and know how the three guides go in search of the Little Five. If you are lucky you might see the dancing white lady, a little spider, the cute palmato gecko or the poisonous dwarf puff adder. Of course, nature can’t be planned and you have no guarantee to see all five animals. So I e.g. did not see the little desert chameleon on my tour. Nevertheless it was a wonderful trip that I can recommend to everyone. If you plan to go in search of the small animals during your trip through Namibia, you should book the tour in advance. You can read more in my article about the Little Five Tour.

Unforgettable: My road trip through Namibia was a great trip and a wonderful experience. I was impressed by the African serenity. With the typical German stressfulness I could partly not believe that things work out. But in the whole time nothing went wrong and everything worked out. This has shown me once again that a little more serenity is not wrong.

This post about the Little Five Safari was written by Ina from Genussbummler.de written for you. Here you can find her blog Genussbummler.de and here the detailed report about the Living Desert Safari. Have a look! Ina did the tour in Swakopmund with the provider “Living Desert Adventures”.

You can find the Namibialiebe tips for Swakopmund in two blog posts:

2+1 tips for your visit in Swakopmund (part 1)
• 12+1 Tips for your visit to Swakopmund (Part 2)

Bushman Walk

Hello, my name is Lynn and I am the writer behind the blog Lieschenradieschen reist

I have lost my heart to southern Africa.

But I like to travel Europe almost as much. My favorite way to travel is hiking, because that way you get a feeling for the country and its people. When I’m not traveling, I read and review books about travel.

I have been to Namibia several times. My enthusiasm started in 2014 with a guided overland camping tour. At that time I fell in love with the endless expanses and the silence of the desert. Since then I try to travel to southern Africa as often as I can. My most beautiful trip so far was in 2016 with my mom, where we did a round trip to the highlights by rental car. My highlight was Luderitz, because the town has a very special vibe and of course the nearby “ghost town” Kolmanskop makes the photographer’s heart beat faster.

On my travels I have experienced many exciting things. Starting with the Little Five Safari in Swakopmund or the sunrise on Dune 45, to visiting desert elephants in a camp near Twyfelfontein. One of my most memorable experiences in Namibia was the Bushmans Walk somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Namib Naukluft Park. I was fascinated to see how much life there is in the desert, if you only know where to look.

Frans, our guide, read the desert sand like a newspaper and was able to show us exactly where a spider had burrowed and at which point a lizard had walked by. Frans himself belongs to the Bushman community and has learned thousands of years of knowledge about the desert through his family. So he was equipped with the necessary know-how to cross the Namib on foot for example.

What I particularly liked about this tour is that Francis did not play anything for us. If you expect a Living Museum, you are wrong. This was a great relief to me, because I feel uncomfortable in situations where it is difficult for me to judge whether people are pretending to meet the expectations of the visitors. Frans, on the other hand, was genuine, honest and authentic and that is what made this experience so unique for me.

I found the stories about Frans and his past particularly fascinating. In the course of apartheid the San children were separated from their parents. This is how Frans’ parents grew up without any of the ancient knowledge. Only through the grandfather of Frans, he has learned everything again.

In the meantime he can survive in the desert.

Based on the shape of the dunes, he can tell which direction he is walking in. This is due to different winds coming from a certain direction depending on the season. He knows how to find water and he can even tell from footprints who walked where (and who slept with whose wife…).

My tip: Next time I would not underestimate how cold Namibian nights can be in winter. Thick clothes and a sleeping bag with comfort zone 0 is mandatory for me from now on.

This post about the Bushman Walk was written for you by Lyn from Lieschenradieschen reist. Here you can find her blog Lieschenradieschen reitst and here the detailed report about the Buschman Walk. Have a look!

Visit to the Cheetah Conservation Fund

Behind the explorer stories are mother and son. Originally created as a media literacy project, so that the little explorer does not march unprepared into the big, wide online world with all its possibilities, but also dangers, the explorer stories have now become a colorful and multifaceted blog magazine with a loyal fan base.What we do is explained by the name:

We discover the world from the doormat to faraway Africa..

… and then write stories about it. Stories, which according to the Duden in German are actually spelled with “y”. & Here you can find our discovery stories.

In Namibia we were in our big family vacation in summer 2019. We took almost three weeks to do it, with a short three-day stopover in Cape Town beforehand. Then we went on to Windhoek – and from there we started with the pickup on a family-friendly self-drive round trip. Because we wanted to have the greatest possible security with a child in the appendix, we had the individual stations in Germany pre-booked by the travel agency.

Our route took us via the Namib-Naukluft National Park, Swakopmund and the Etosha National Park back to the capital city. This sounds like a manageable tour, but we quickly realized: 300 kilometers in Namibia are completely different from 300 kilometers in Germany. Therefore, in the end we were very glad that we had listened to the travel agency for our first African experience and kept the daily distances relatively short.

From the multitude of impressions, it is not easy to pick out the experience that impressed us the most. We try it anyway and “nominate” the “Cheetah Conservation Fund” near Otjiwarongo. Why? For us it was an irritating experience that even the supposedly wild and romantic and endless Namibia – like most land on this earth – is largely divided and fenced accordingly. We had simply not thought enough about it beforehand. When we learned how difficult the relationship between farmers and predators, especially cheetahs, is and what consequences this has for the animals, especially the little explorer was very concerned. In fact, it happens very often that farmers shoot the endangered animals out of fear for their livestock, and not infrequently helpless squeaking puppies are left behind in the bushes when the mother had to give up her life in the hunt for food.

The Cheetah Conservation Fund not only takes care of these cheetah orphans, but has also made it their business to inform about the problem. And there is also a tangible solution: the facility breeds herding dogs that guard the farmers’ livestock and keep the cheetahs away. We think: This is a broad-based aid project that we are happy to support. You can read our contribution – penned by the little explorer – in our blog post about the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

Our tip: We had much too little time! A round trip is nice because you see a lot. But the downside is that you also spend a lot of time on the road. There is often something to see – giraffes, warthogs, beautiful landscapes – but still we were a bit breathless. At the accommodations we had sometimes three days, sometimes only one overnight stay. I would definitely do that differently next time. For a first acquaintance this was ok, but a deeper immersion into the country and its people was not possible this way.

Unforgettable: During the landing approach to Windhoek we looked still a little bit stunned at the endless barren expanse. But not even 24 hours later we had fallen in love with this landscape! I will never forget the sunrise in Etosha Park, when a giraffe head appeared in front of the huge orange-red disc of the rising sun ..

Namibia has taken our hearts by storm – and a little piece of us has stayed there.

This article about the visit to the Cheetah Conservation Fund was written for you by Entdeckerstorys. Here you can find her blog Entdeckerstorys and here the detailed report about the visit to the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Have a look! On the homepage of the Cheetah Conservation Fund you can book your experience with the cheetahs and get further information.

On photo safari in Namibia

I am Thomas and together with my wife Melanie I run the Travel-Photography Blog. We write there about our travels and many other things from our life. Additionally we give many tips about photography. Our focus is on travel and wildlife photography.

It was an old dream of mine to photograph these wonderful animals at least once in their natural habitat. This is a dream I fulfilled together with my wife in 2009.

We flew to Namibia for 10 days (unfortunately we couldn’t do more). Our goal was also just to see animals. So we went by rental car first to the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Farm and then for five days to the Etosha National Park. On the way back to Windhoek, we spent two nights at Otjiwa Safari Lodge.

We wanted to get as many animals as possible in front of the camera.

This wish was then also fulfilled to us. We have seen and photographed incredibly many, wonderful animals. Landscapes and cities have really not interested us on this trip.

We had a total of three experiences, situations that we now always like to think back to.

This was the visit of the Cheetah Farm, where we could experience these beautiful animals very close. Once cuddling with cheetahs, that’s really something. But photographically, the drive to see the wild cheetahs, in the most beautiful afternoon light, was one of the highlights of the trip.

In Etosha we had two wonderful photo spots. One of them is the waterhole Andoni, in the very north-east of the park. There we saw more animals than at any other waterhole on our trip. So we spent several hours there and saw in the time only one other car with travelers.

The second great experience we had at the waterhole Klein Namutoni, where we arrived in a late afternoon. At that time there was exactly one giraffe standing there. When we had to leave about two hours later, because of the sunset, we had countless giraffes and two elephant families in front of the lens.

My tip: On our next trip we would plan more time for Etosha to visit the western part of the park as well.

Unforgettable: These are definitely the sounds and smells of the wildlife. Be it at the waterholes, somewhere in the bush or even in the evening in the camps. Sitting there on the terrace and somewhere far away a lion roars.

These photo tips were written for you by Thomas cvom ReisenFotografieBlog. Here you can find his ReisenFotografieBlog and here his report about his photo safari in Namibia. Have a look!

You can find the Namibialiebe tips for the Etosha National Park in the blog post: 7 tips for your visit to the Etosha National Park.

Discover fossils – the Mesosaurus Fossil Camp

Moin, we are Miriam and Johannes from northern Germany and write on our blog North Star Chronicles about traveling as a family in connection with culture and history. On the road we are not only in Europe and the rest of the world, but also like to discover the most beautiful corners of Germany.

In 2015 we traveled for a total of 3 weeks with a roof tent car through Namibia. It was a long awaited dream of ours to discover this great country in southern Africa on our own. At that time we were still without a child. We started in the capital Windhoek and continued our road trip over Keetmanshoop in the south, as well as the Tirasberge in the west over the Namib Desert as well as the Skeleton Coast to the Etosha National Park. After that we went to the San and to the Waterberg Plateau.

Namibia has really many experiences to offer. Especially because of the wildlife and the beautiful lonely landscapes many visitors come to the country. But there are also some very exciting experiences, which many tourists just do not have on the zettel. In Namibia there are for example great fossils to marvel at!

Near Keetmanshoop, very close to the Quiver Tree Forest, is the Mesosaurus Fossil Camp. The Mesosaurus lived about. 290 million years in the sea and belonged rather to the smaller genus of the dinosaurs. The fascinating thing today is the fact that its remains can only be found in southern Africa as well as in Brazil and Uruguay. Why this is so, and what this means for science, you can read in our article about the Mesosaurus and the fossils of Namibia.

More totally exciting fossils can be found further north at Khorixas. There lies the so called “petrified forest”. Of course, this is not really a forest, but a lot of scattered trees, which look damn real. When you touch these trees in the scorching heat, you are not touching warm wood, but ice-cold stone. These trees did not grow in the original Namibia, but came from much further south near today’s Antarctica and a much colder climate. The Mesosaurus fossils as well as the petrified trees can only be visited with a guided tour.

Our tip: We would probably rent a newer car, which does not have a 612 km engine at the time of rental.000 km on the hump! But if you can change tires and have some improvisation skills, there is (almost) nothing you can’t fix with cable ties.

Unforgettable: There are many impressions that we still remember today. On the one hand, of course, these endless expanses and the loneliness that we as city dwellers no longer know. But also the silence that reigns in the Namib Desert is something that we civilized people hardly ever experience.

It was so quiet that we could hear our own heartbeat in the middle of the day.

This post about fossils in Namibia was written for you by Miriam and Johannes from NorthStarChronicles. Here you can find her blog NorthStarChronicles and here the detailed report about fossils in Nambia. Have a look! And here is the direct link to the Mesosaurus Fossil Camp homepage.

Hiking in Klein-Aus

I am Sabine and write on my blog Ferngeweht about my travels all over the world. All trips are self-organized, most of the time we go into nature.

In 2011 I traveled with my husband for three weeks through Namibia. We rented a car and drove the classic beginner route: Windhoek, Kalahari, west to Klein-Aus, north to Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, through the Erongo Mountains to Etosha and back to Windhoek via Waterberg. We spent the night on farms or in other small accommodations.

One of the most beautiful moments of my Namibia trip (and there were many of those!) was our hike in Klein-Aus. The first three days we sat almost only in the car. We saw a lot, but almost always only out of the car window. In Klein-Aus we had the opportunity for the first time to hike for a longer time. I always feel I have arrived at a vacation destination only when I have actually set foot in the country in the truest sense of the word – that is, when I can explore an area on foot instead of just looking at the country as it passes by. And that’s exactly what we did in Klein-Aus.

The hike was not without effort, because we first had to get used to the scorching sun. But the tranquility there is simply indescribable: the two of us were completely alone and could look in all directions without seeing a soul, a house or a settlement. The entire area of our accommodation Farm Klein-Aus Vista covers more than 50.000 hectares. That means: Up to the horizon and beyond, everything is owned by the farm – from a German point of view unbelievable vastness!

After ten kilometers of hiking – the way is well marked by the way – we came back to the accommodation. In the evening another highlight of the day was waiting for us with a sunset drive. Passing the wild desert horses we drove with our guide to a viewpoint where we experienced one of the most beautiful sunsets of our Namibia trip. Our driver served us delicious appetizers and beverages. A perfect end of the day! You can find my article about our hike in Klein-Aus here.

My tip: What I didn’t like so much on our Namibia trip was the side trip to Waterberg. The hike from our accommodation was not very spectacular. Instead, next time I would rather stay two more days in Etosha National Park or choose a different destination.

Unforgettable: Namibia is still one of my top 3 destinations after all these years. I was very impressed by the incredible vastness of the country and the tranquility that reigns there.

This post about the hike in Klein-Aus was written for you by Sabine from Ferngeweht. You can find their blog Ferngeweht here and their detailed report on the Klein-Aus hike here. Have a look! And here you can go directly to the homepage of the farm Klein-Aus-Vista.

Namibialove says thank you!

In this post, you’ve shared special experiences in Namibia through five authentic accounts. These will give you some inspiration for your next trip to Namibia. Maybe you would like to visit the cheetahs at the Cheetah Conservation Fund? Or explore the desert by bushman?

Feel free to report back in the comments about your experiences in Namibia. What can you recommend? In the category “Activities” you can find more reports about special experiences in Namibia on Namibialiebe.

Thank you for sharing your memories and experiences in Namibia with us!

I have enjoyed reading your stories and summarizing them in this post!