The Best of Namibia (20-Day Self-Drive)

Nineteen nights around Namibia, entirely independent, in a hire car with the accommodation booked in advance, with the price quoted on application.

This is the operator’s longest self-drive and the only one that goes properly south, which is the part of the country most visitors never reach and arguably the strangest.

The familiar highlights come first: Sossusvlei, Etosha and Swakopmund. The route then continues south into the Kalahari, red sand and grass country quite unlike the Namib, and on to Fish River Canyon, a gorge well over a hundred miles long and among the largest anywhere. The Tiras Mountains follow, granite ranges rising out of the plain with almost nothing on them, then Luderitz on the coast, a German colonial town that the diamond rush built, and Kolmanskop beside it, a mining settlement abandoned in the 1950s and now half-filled with sand, which is the most photographed ghost town in Africa for good reason.

A 2×4 or 4×4 depending on the itinerary and the accommodation throughout at a range of lodges and camps are included; international flights, fuel, most meals and the optional activities are not. The price is given on application. The dry season from May to October is the window. No wildlife sighting can be promised. Twenty days is a long trip and the distances in the south are substantial, so the fuel budget and the daily driving times are both worth checking against the itinerary before committing. Kolmanskop and the Tiras ranges are the two things nothing else in the operator’s range reaches, and between them they justify the extra week.