Namibia Expedition (Fixed Departure)

Seven nights across Namibia, self-driven in convoy with crew support, from Windhoek to Etosha, with the price quoted on application.

Namibia is the easiest country in Africa to drive and the convoy format takes the remaining risk out of it: the gravel roads are long, fast and unforgiving of a puncture a hundred kilometres from anywhere.

Windhoek opens it, then Sossusvlei, where the dunes rise three hundred metres from the Namib and Big Daddy is among the tallest sand dunes in the world, with an off-road climb up it and Deadvlei beneath, a white clay pan studded with camelthorn trees that died some eight hundred years ago and never rotted in the dry air. Remote gravel roads carry the route to Swakopmund, where the desert runs straight into the cold Atlantic and a German colonial town sits in between. A game drive at Etosha closes it, where the animals concentrate round the waterholes on the edge of an enormous salt pan. The full day-by-day itinerary was not available on the operator’s page.

The format is a self-drive convoy with crew support around the clock; the detailed inclusions were not itemised on the page and are worth confirming at booking, and 5 per cent GST and 2 per cent TCS are added to the trip cost. The price is given on application. The dry season from May to October is the window, when the game concentrates round the water and the gravel is at its best. No wildlife sighting can be promised. Eight days is short for a country this size, so the route sticks to the two things Namibia does better than anywhere, which are the dunes and the game.