Reviews of trips to Windhoek

"Pre-trip planning was great. I had many back-and-forth conversations with Megan and we tailored a trip that met our specific needs. We had to go through several rounds of proposals until we got the right one, and Megan was patient, prompt, friendly and very helpful. We definitely could not have arranged the trip without her guidance.

Once on the ground in Africa, we encountered a major problem. Because I was traveling without my wife, I was told by the border agent in Namibia that I needed to present my son's birth certificate, a letter from my wife giving me consent to travel alone with my son, and a copy of my wife's passport. This is all due to child trafficking prevention laws in southern Africa. I was not aware of these requirements and had to call my wife at 2am in the morning US time so that she could send me a copy of my son's birth certificate. The border agent also wanted the letter and her passport scan but I told her there was no way I could get those in short order and she reluctantly let us in to the country.

Over the next few days, I had my wife get a notarized letter and scan that and her passport and send to me. This, however, was not technically in compliance with the laws of these countries, as I was supposed to have an original copy of both the birth certificate and the letter. This meant that any border agent in Zimbabwe or Botswana could have decided to follow the law exactly and decline us entry into their country.

Upon reviewing the itinerary from Expert Africa, I did see a short section about traveling with children under 18 in southern Africa. It was several pages into a long itinerary, it was pretty vague (it mentioned a birth certificate but nothing else), and no one at Expert Africa - either by phone or in email - ever pointed this out to me.

I feel that this was a major failure on the part of the company. I had several restless nights wondering if I was going to miss an entire week of my trip due to this, I had to call my wife in the middle of the night, I spent time talking to the US consulates in each of these countries and generally this caused me a lot of stress.

I want to be very clear with this: any time Expert Africa has a parent and child traveling with them, they should repeatedly and proactively remind the parent to get all necessary documentation in order weeks before the trip takes place. This should not be left to a small-print section at the back of a document. As much as I loved my trip and the service I got planning the trip, I don't think I can recommend Expert Africa to friends unless I have confidence that other travellers would not be put in the same situation that my son and I were put in." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"yes loads but no time to write about them

wilson - best guide ever had

Overall - Excellent" Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Wonderful first trip to Namibia.

Exceeded our expectations and we enjoyed all aspects of the trip. Landscapes are stunning, animals are exciting to see and we felt that the lodges and overall trip was making a positive contribution to supporting local people and environment efforts.

Would recommend kayaking with seals at Walvis Bay as a side excursion. Going out of season did mean that a couple of lodges were very quiet but in the positive side we had some personalised excursions, found that the Etosha waterholes were not mobbed by visitors and that the heat was manageable.

We would certainly recommend this trip and ExpertAfrica to others - thank you to Tracy for the fantastic service and also for sending us the Namibia guidebook which we found so useful and used extensively." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Sabina was endlessly patient in tweaking this trip to get it just right for us, and she succeeded beyond our expectations.

We had a great mix of accommodation styles and Sabina took on board our request for lots of hiking, giving us plenty of opportunities to really explore Namibia.

Overall a great trip." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip

"Running out of superlatives - we simply loved our trip, every single minute of it. We were a bit apprehensive at travelling after getting out of the way of it over the last three years. However, everything went so well, we'll be back for more soon, we hope.

All the arrangements went so well, from our arrival at Windhoek airport to the return two weeks later. We absolutely loved the Namibian people, who couldn't be nicer, at everywhere we went.

The land, the landscapes, the variety of animals, the food, the accommodation - we've never had better.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Can't think of anything. It all went so well." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Absolutely loved it.

It was always a bit of a risk going back to a country that we had previously visited and loved, but this trip was even better." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 21 on a Namibia trip

"We found the booking process with Tracy very straightforward, especially as we had only contacted her about 10 weeks prior with our idea of a trip to either Kenya or back to Namibia. Tracy was able to reserve all the lodges for us, and present an itinerary for our approval very quickly, after we showed an interest in the 'Pygmy Mouse' safari.

Having used Expert Africa before, we once again found the quality of the service exceptional, coupled with benefiting from the teams in depth knowledge of the countries we were visiting. We once again found Namibia to be a wonderful country, and very easy to self drive around. We absolutely loved exploring the areas of Botswana on our itinerary, and meeting the friendly people of Zimbabwe around the amazing Victoria Falls. Every petrol station we stopped at had fuel available, and all accepted payments by card or in cash.

All lodges have Wifi, usually available in the main lodge area, but we found quite often our room would be close enough to this to be able to use it there. The was a noticeable difference between the quality of the roads in Namibia (good) when compared to those we used in Botswana (not so good)." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"Our second trip to Namibia that was arranged by Expert Africa. As before, this was an excellent trip. Our request were accommodated by Tom, and his suggestions for places to stay were excellent.

This trip in addition to Etosha we went along Caprivi Strip with gave us a different set of birds and mammals from our previous trip - the change in habitat was well worth it. The roads along Caprivi were much improved from guide books and many of the pot holed sections had been (or were being) resurfaced. This made travel even easier.

We thoroughly enjoyed this trip, relaxed in the knowledge that everything was arranged and would work - thank so much all at Expert Africa and in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"Our trip involved a lot of travelling with complicated logistics and pick-ups/transfers etc and without exception it was all excellent. Extremely well organised.

All flights in small planes were great and lodges in Botswana and Namibia were small, clean, comfortable with extremely friendly staff.

Great 2-weeks! Thanks Expert Africa for organising!" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 5 on a Namibia trip

"we had a great time" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 5 on a Namibia trip