Reviews of Okonjima Villa

"What an amazing end to our holiday - we were upgraded from the Bush Camp to the private Villa.

We were three couples, but the Villa could host 10+ guests. There are two suites in separate buildings with kitchens, dressing rooms and the largest bathroom ever, with indoor and outdoor showers, and deck areas. The main house has two bedrooms, the shared living room, dining room and ginormous deck area. There is an infinity pool, a firepit and a gazebo area overlooking the waterhole.

The Villa has a host and private chef. What a treat. There is a large kitchen with all the beverages you could possibly want.

We arrived, had lunch, and out for the afternoon drive looking for the elusive leopards. We found a leopardess and a cub with a kill.

We arrived back from our drive and sundowner, to be met by our host who told us he had a surprise. The surprise, two porcupines hanging out under the gazebo. They were soon joined by a brown hyena, and later a honey badger.

The next morning we visited the cheetah at Africats, and the Africats facility. I knew the cheetah would be in an enclosure, but it was substantially larger than I was expecting. After lunch we relaxed on our decks with gemsbok and common impala walking by to the waterhole. Our friends at the other suite had mongoose visiting them.

As we were having afternoon tea (which included a carrot cake the chef made for me when she found out it was my favorite cake), I looked across the waterhole and there was a massively huge cat. We jumped in the jeep and went in search. About 30 minutes later we found him. Just a beautiful animal.

That evening we were again visited by the porcupine and brown hyena, along with a civet.
Don't think we only saw cats, in the mornings there were loads of dik diks and steenbok, two species of zebra and red hartebeest. The morning we were leaving we went in search of the sable, but unfortunately didn't find them.

The second evening Chef Emily cooked up a braii with sausages, beef and venison. So much fun to sit out by the fire, looking up at the stars. This holiday was celebrating my 60th birthday, and Emily whipped up a beautifully decorated and so tasty chocolate cake for me.

If you have a large group, this is the place to stay. I cannot find words to describe what a wonderful experience this was for us. I can't think of anything that would have been a better finish to an amazing two weeks in Namibia." See all these reviews: 14n in Namibia

"We were likely enough to be upgraded to the Okonjima Villa which was an outstanding experience. A stunning lodge with deck, infinity pool, waterhole and fire pit, not to mention beautiful, spacious, well furnished rooms with private outside showers and seating areas.

We had amazing staff to make our stay comfortable - Tobias, the Villa Manager; Emily, the chef and Gabriel, the guide. The staff here made our last 2 nights in Namibia a memorable occasion. The food was delicious and beautifully well-presented. We did leopard tracking drives and saw leopards and numerous giraffe. Sundowners on a hill overlooking the reserve with a heartstopping sunset. It was absolutely wonderful.

We did the Africat tour and this was less good than the game drives, the organisation has found that relocating leopards and rehabilitating cheetah and lion does not work and the rehabilitated animals die in the wild. Their emphasis is moving away from animal rescue to education and preservation of natural habitat. The information in the buildings on the tour is outdated and really needs upgrading/updating to show what the organisation is doing now and plans to do in the future." See all these reviews: 16n in Namibia

"Although this is a fairly small nature reserve (200 km2), its wildlife is second to none. An absolute highlight was that several of the resident white rhinos visited the waterhole right in front of our camp. And we tracked on foot the next day, an experience not to be missed. In addition, we saw them on several other game drives. Moreover, we saw two leopards who were just lounging around.

The chances of seeing leopards here largely rely on the animals carrying a radio collar, which is not to everybody’s liking. When I enquired about the option to equip them with a GPS sensor our guide Opari told us that in fact they are thinking about it. Needless to say that this would enable the guides to track them much more efficiently.

We ended our stay here with a visit to the Africat Foundation where we also saw five cheetahs close up in a fenced enclosure. However, you wouldn’t know this from the gorgeous pictures I was able to take of them.

The rooms were very spacious and tastefully furnished. And the food was from out of this world." See all these reviews: 19n in Namibia; 15n in Botswana

"Sharing the title with Erongo, Okonjima enjoys the beautiful topography of Erongo with the abundant opportunities for wildlife spotting a la Safarihoek.

We were excited about staying at Bush Camp as it looked very lovely. But when we reached the gate we discovered we had been upgraded to 'The Villa'. This is an exclusive property away from the rest of the accommodation and with its own chef, driver and 'butler/concierge'. It also has its own infinity pool and waterhole. This is movie star stuff and the first (and probably last!) time we will get to experience such a level of exclusivity.

The wildlife spotting is much more democratic and everyone gets to track radio-collard Leopard in the dry river bed and get up close to the Cheetahs at the AfriCat foundation centre. If you make time to visit the latter you'll add another dimension to your trip here. The history of the place, from farm to trophy game reserve to conservation success story - thanks to the incredible Wayne whose vision it is." See all these reviews: 11n in Namibia

"We had included Okonjima in our itinerary because one of the animals we really wanted to see in Namibia were cheetahs, so we were disappointed that the cheetah tracking ceased in between booking our trip and our stay (this is because the leopards have been so successful it's difficult for the cheetahs to thrive). However the experiences we had were really exceptional, and more than made up for this.

The villa is a much smaller property that the principal camps at Okonjima and is also out in the reserve rather than in the fenced off area where the other camps are (wilder, but also, as we discovered, colder!). It's quite a "luxury" property - white fluffy towels, a bath, outdoor & indoor showers, quite a change as we were coming from a more bushcamp-style property at Mundulea! The villa was originally designed as a private safari house for one large group but it's now available to all - there is a large central house with a pool and dining area, and a very welcome fire, overlooking a well-used waterhole, and two freestanding smaller villas which are the guest rooms. There's a chef, a manager and more staff than were staying there, although the villa is not staffed all the time - but there are always drinks available for you to help yourself. From the deck you can see lots of animals - antelope, birds, giraffes, warthogs during the day, and brown hyena and a whole family of porcupines very close at night.

What we did not expect was the quality and variety of animals we saw on our activities. Like most guests, our first evening was spent tracking the collared leopards, and Nova took a little while to find. When we did find him, he obligingly wandered around near the vehicle in good light for a while. Rohan, our guide, had helped out his colleague from Plains Camp and their vehicle joined us; we were then heading off to leave Nova to go about his business while we had our gin and tonic. The other guide then called Rohan to say there was a honey badger - we did an about turn and found a young honey badger digging in the bed of the river where we saw the leopard. We were pretty excited by this - they're usually shy, if ferocious, and noctural, and we'd only seen one before in some 15 year of fairly regular safari going. Then we realised the leopard was back. He walked straight past our vehicle and sat about a metre away from the honey badger, who was oblivious, digging his hole. After thinking for a minute or two, the leopard leapt - and was spectacularly repelled by the much smaller honey badger! When even the guides are getting excited (you can find Rohan's footage on Instagram) you know you're seeing something special.

That wasn't all the evening held for us; after a delayed gin and tonic, we headed back through the darkness to camp and came across another first - an aardvark.

And that was just the first night. By the time we'd finished, as well as seeing our cheetahs (the rescued cheetahs at the foundation), we'd walked with rhinos, and seen not one but two more aardvarks! (One with another leopard sat on the other side of the vehicle, wondering why he wasn't the star of the show for once). Rohan, our guide, was knowledgeable and enthusiastic and really went out of his way to make sure we had a great time and some special experiences - not just big animals, but also the endemic south-west African birds and a lot of the smaller stuff.

Okonjima is a very well managed reserve with comfortable lodges - we visited Plains camp and although it would have been much too big for us, it was well-designed and I think would be ideal for families - that is easy to access and would be a real highlight of a first visit to Africa. But more experienced safari-goers will find something for them here too, although you're clearly not in the kind of pristine environment you might find in, for instance, the big national parks in Zambia. The reserve takes its role in conservation and research very seriously and if you are interested, there is a lot to do and learn. The villa is a very spiffy and more than comfortable place to say, but it was the wildlife experience that really stood out for us.

And one last aside - we found when we left that the gardener had very kindly washed our car for us, and I think the car rental guy had never had such a clean vehicle returned to him before!" See all these reviews: 9n in Namibia

"My husband & I rented the villa, which can fit up to ten guests. It was just the two of us & at first, we felt a little ridiculous having our own chef & guide & the big place to ourselves, but we quickly got over it! :)

Our guide Richard, his lovely wife Zanelle was our hostess & chef Christopher made our stay so special! I am still craving Christopher's amazing & gigantic omelettes! We got to approach a cheetah on foot & saw several leopards, including one stalking a warthog (the warthog got away).

The accommodations are amazing - we loved sitting around the fire pit with drinks & snacks each night after the p.m. game drives, then siting around the fireplace in the room after dinner or outside overlooking the waterhole. The visit to the AfriCat Foundation was also very educational, to see the great work they do for the cats.

We only spent two nights here & my only wish is that we could've stayed longer." See all these reviews: 14n in Namibia

"I don't know what we did right but we were upgraded from the bush camp to the villa. Everything about the experience at the villa was fantastic!

The room, location, food, service, game drive (Pieter was great!), and cat tracking. Being at the Okonjima villa was the perfect way to end our trip. Staying at the villa made me feel how rich people must feel. Pampered and special." See all these reviews: 19n in Namibia

"Memorable experience the service was first class staff and guide excellent Too good for the beginning !!" See all these reviews: 12n in Namibia

"This is a special place and team. Villa very nice and comfortable. The team of Anna-Marie, Defriss, Martin and Martin are all excellent - felt as if we were staying over with friends.

Have never seen leopard and cheetah so up close and personal, african wild dogs too! Felt really sad to have to leave in the end." See all these reviews: 14n in Namibia

"What to say. Marvellous chef Martin, Fantastic hostess Joanna and remarkable guide Jacques. So glad we managed to get this as our last place - I'm glad I hung out for it as it was perfect.

[ Ed: this traveller went on to comment about Main Camp. Because she didn't stay there, we requested that she allow us to remove those comments. She agreed to this, and they don't appear here. ]

our experience though - truly wonderful - and will go back next year but ONLY if we can have Jacques and Martin!!" See all these reviews: 14n in Namibia