Reviews of safaris to Namib-Naukluft National Park

"A great trip!!!!!!!! We waited two year for it, having cancelled it in 2020 and 2021. We are very happy with everything, including my wife who joined me again in a safari since 1989!

Namibia is a special country with so much to explore other than wildlife; if the latter is the focus other african countries may be better suited to my view.

And thus, belonging to this group, after my last two trips to Rwanda and Namibia, I am ready to go back to east Africa :)" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 8 on a Namibia trip

"We have had a wonderful few weeks, discovering new places and enjoying the return to old favourites. Namibia has changed in some ways since we first visited in 2000, but the rugged beauty and the solitude remains.

I’ll get the major disappointment out first, not that you can do anything about it - Simba don’t make tomato sauce flavour crisps any more! Disaster!

In general, we learnt a lot about how we personally need to plan travel in the future, both having gained various back/hip/knee problems since we last travelled any distance and, at times, feeling more than a mere three years older.

I don’t think we will consider ‘one night stands’ again, especially if it means an hour or more down a gravel road basically just to eat and sleep. Namtib and Ai Aibas are both beautiful places and we had no time to do them justice. We’re not early risers and we are slow drivers, who like to stop and look, which all combined to have us on the road 9.30-4.30 for several days, which was exhausting.

We did look at the hotels in several of the towns and wonder whether we won't be better off to stay somewhere like that as a transit stop.

We also need to carefully look at the lodges, to consider whether we can actually cope there. If there is a steep walk to the reception or lots of steps, it's difficult. Also, there's no point in going somewhere and finding that the walks involve hiking up a mountain!

Being experienced travellers to Namibia, we think we won't try one of your set itineraries again. We would prefer to custom-build, knowing that we will have sound advice from you. We have booked all our previous visits through you (or Sunvil, originally) and we wouldn't consider going anywhere else.

There are certain areas which we won't choose to visit again, because of the poor quality of the gravel roads. For instance, the roads around the entrance to Sossussvlei were appalling. The drive to Swakop, once past Solitaire, had nowhere to stop and seems endless. The one picnic area was infested with wasps - what a disappointment! Also, much as we love Etosha, we spent very little time driving to other waterholes because the roads are awful.


We found most other visitors were German, with far fewer from Britain than on our previous trips. Not a problem; just a comment.

We'd like to mention Wilderness Safaris, whose staff were excellent whilst we used their airport lounge and then in guiding us through the airport. Whilst we were there, we had an interesting conversation with a gentleman whose was a senior commercial officer for the airports authority. He was interested in our descriptions of how a trip to Namibia is viewed my many of our friends in the UK; namely, if they actually know where Namibia is, as bonkers and dangerous, particularly as we drive ourselves. He was considering what commercial measures could be taken to dispel any fears and misunderstandings amongst UK people.
However, we're quite happy if tourist numbers don't increase!

Altogether, an outstandingly brilliant time, no less than we expected!

Thank you." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"We initially booked this trip with Expert Africa in late February/early March, 2020. Then Covid hit and the world went into lockdown. Maruska was our contact person from the start, making the reservations and setting up the itinerary for us.

We went through many ups and downs over the course of these two years, never sure if indeed the trip would materialize. Initially we postponed the September, 2020 trip to 2021, but it still did not seem wise to go then, so we postponed it to August/September, 2022. If we could have gotten most of our deposit returned, we would have cancelled the entire trip, with all of the continued worries and anxiety that Covid was inflicting on the world.

As Expert Africa has a firm policy of not returning deposits, we postponed the trip again to 2022. We are so glad we did! It all turned out fabulous, and thankfully, we remained healthy.

Throughout this long postponement, with the changes involved, Maruska was always exceedingly polite, understanding, and respectful of our worries and concerns. She did an extraordinary job arranging our trip, which involved four different countries, multiple flights, and many different camps.

The organization was outstanding and everything was seamless.

Truly incredible attention to detail. Thank you.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Can’t think of any." Read full review: 29 nights in Africa; 9 on a Namibia trip

"An excellent trip apart from the car issues we had.

The gravel roads aren’t for the faint hearted but the country as a whole makes up for it!

Stunning scenery, a great variety of experiences and many very happy memories.

The tok tokkie trail and Ongava were our highlights" Read full review: 33 nights in Africa; 22 on a Namibia trip

"The trip was excellent - great wildlife, great landscapes, and great places to stay.

May be worth Expert Africa warning people just how bad some of the roads can be (the Welwitschia Drive in places was a trial, and going the optimum speed on the endless ridged sections doesn't always help, especially if you want to stop the vehicle and look at something with the binoculars). However, that's all part of the fun.

Everything worked out as planned, and it was so good I didn't even mind changing a flat tyre on my birthday before we walked out to the other-worldly experience of Dead Vlei. Most of the people we dealt with at the various camps, restaurants etc were native Namibians, and almost to a woman (and some men) they were friendly and helpful and welcoming.

The navigation was also very easy and its nice to have roads with such little traffic. This will stand out as one of our favourite trips of all time. We hope to return.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
Not really. This trip was the upper end of our affordability, but there's not much one can do about that unless we camped and cooked our own food, and then we would have had less time for the wildlife and would not have experienced some of the excellent chalets etc.

Namibia does seem to offer something special in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the ease of a self-drive experience and quality of places to stay - and you undoubtedly know the country well enough to pick some of the most characterful places. Maybe make sure Europcar don't give out duff contact numbers to clients!

Other than that, thanks Tracy for all the ground organisation, and also thanks Mr McIntyre for the excellent Bradt guide, which was a constant companion." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"All well planned, helpful preparation discussions with Sabina.

Only minor detail that went wrong was advice to shop in Keetmanhoop before entering South Africa through the Mata Mata gate only to have nearly all our food and firewood confiscated by SA Customs." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 10 on a South Africa trip

"Definitely one of the top holidays of our lifetime (so far!!), expertly put together and managed by Sabina at Expert Africa. We were recommended by friends who have used Expert Africa and would unreservedly recommend them ourselves. Sabina listened to what we wanted from the start and built the itinerary, timings and accommodation around that perfectly.

Overall driving distance was about 4,250km so it was a tough schedule, but everything we expected (and a quite a bit more).

Managed to see and pass through stunning scenery, stop at interesting places and observe a variety of wildlife from Southern Right whales in South Africa to the big cats in Namibia, not to mention the magnificent seasonal flora on display in the Namaqualand.

Everything was in place for us so minimising hassle." Read full review: 25 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"An amazing trip that we enjoyed from start to finish. It had the perfect balance that enabled us to experience many different aspects of this fascinating and diverse country.

Although driving distances were long, the fabulous scenery with everlasting landscape (and animals) you see along the way certainly make up for this.

Our only regret was we should have stayed longer!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Certainly can't think of anything at this time. Our 2nd trip with Expert Africa and we are sure there will be many more in the near future!" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 21 on a Namibia trip

"Little more to add to what I have said about each lodge/element individually. The whole trip was wonderful and exceeded expectations.

The booking process was really efficient, informative and painless thanks to Tracy's help and availability throughout. I had a particular itinerary in mind but was not sure whether it would work in practice. With Tracy's help it became a reality and the girls and I had a very memorable trip of a lifetime with lots of photographs to enjoy for years afterwards.

I couldn't fault any of it - all the connections worked well and no complaints about any aspect.

Thank you so much for all the help and making it a reality. I really hope it will have given my girls a taste for travel in the future." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 9 on a Namibia trip

"This trip - which had been twice postponed because of the pandemic - in the end turned out one of the best we've ever been on (and we've been to close to a hundred countries!).

The driving was great fun – especially through the vast empty landscapes of southern Namibia. The stunning scenery of the Namib, Namibrand and the Sperrgebiet will stay in our memories forever. This wasn’t so much about wildlife, but we had a few nice add-ons in that department too. Plus the highly atmospheric ghost towns of the Sperrgebiet and the lonely barren Skeleton Coast. And on top of all that we stayed at some outstanding lodges, characterful hotels and guest farms and enjoyed lots of good food (too much so – we both put on a few kilos over the course of this trip!).

Everything worked fine, no major hiccups, and we really found we were leaving our stresses and worries far behind and thoroughly recharged our batteries. Thanks for putting this together for us!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Can't really think of anything. It was all fine. .... maybe add Angola to your portfolio. We'd love to go to that northern neighbour of Namibia too ..." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 21 on a Namibia trip