Lavished by Namibia

Seven nights around Namibia by light aircraft and 4×4, self-guided, for two guests only, with the price quoted on application.

Flying between the lodges is what this buys. Namibia’s distances are the great cost of visiting it, and a light aircraft removes most of a week of driving, leaving the 4×4 for the parts where the ground is the point.

No day-by-day itinerary was available, so the route and the lodges need establishing at booking, but the flying circuit of Namibia follows a well-worn path and for good reason. Sossusvlei comes first in most versions, where the dunes rise three hundred metres above the pan and Deadvlei’s blackened camel thorns stand on white clay. The coast at Swakopmund or the Skeleton Coast beyond it follows, where the desert meets a cold Atlantic in near-permanent fog. Damaraland supplies the rock art and the desert elephant, and Etosha the game, round the waterholes at the edge of the salt pan. Seen from a light aircraft at a few thousand feet, the scale of the Namib is something a vehicle cannot convey.

The trip is built for two guests, which makes it a private arrangement rather than a tour, and the price is given on request in Namibian dollars. The detailed inclusions were not published and are worth settling in writing. The dry season from May to October is the window. No wildlife sighting can be promised. Eight days is short for Namibia on the ground and entirely reasonable in the air, which is the whole argument for doing it this way.