Travel reviews by Mrs K from London

"We only stayed one night in the Olive Grove, but it was a comfortable, calm stopover, with great food and warm service - would highly recommend!"

"Staying at Boulders feels like a visiting another world.

The location is the main attraction: a remote pile of boulders overlooking vast, desolate plains and crumbling old volcanoes and mountains, with Zebras, Ostriches and Oryx wandering by. The accommodation is luxury camping, the food very high quality and the service is warm and attentive. Plus the activities were excellent, especially the sunrise and sundown drives.

Only downside was the noise in the rooms on windy nights - it kept me up the first night, as in my sleepy imagination, it sounded like animals circling the tent!"

"Eco-friendly lodge with nice views and well-located for access to Sossuvlei.

Our guide for the dunes trip was not as enthused as others we met on the trip, but the excursion itself into the dunes was really amazing - a dream come true.

Food was great and when we left one of the staff spotted some trouble with one of our tires, and arranged for us to see the on-site mechanic who diagnosed damage to the tire wall changed the tire for us, which was amazing - he probably saved us a burst tire on the road!"

"Nice big rooms with en suite bathroom, a TV and a laundry service, which was very welcome after a week on the road. Excellent breakfast and really helpful staff, who kindly arranged breakfast packs on the day we had an early start.

Only suggestion for improvement would be extractor fans in the bathrooms, as we found the room ended up a bit steamy and damp after we used the shower.

Whilst here, these travellers took a Day trip to Sandwich Harbour. They commented:

Brilliant fun in the dunes!
We had so much fun on this trip - driving over the dunes was absolutely brilliant and we could have stayed there for hours!

It was a bucket-list thing for me to go to Sandwich Harbour, to see where the desert meets the sea - and I'll never forget the drive along that precariously narrow stretch of sand between the crashing waves and the huge dunes. My only suggestion for the future would be if they were to advise where you can see the classic viewpoint of the headland curving out into the sea in the distance, ringed by the dunes - possibly the best vantage point of this would be on top of one of the dunes, but we never quite saw it from that angle.

They also enjoyed a scenic flight over the coast, and said of that:

Mind-blowing, once-in-a-litetime trip!
This was far and away the most exhilarating, inspirational and beautiful excursion we've ever taken! It was a big expense, because we were the only two passengers, but it was entirely worth it.

The first leg of the flight, over the Namib desert sand sea, was phenomenally beautiful - I must have taken a thousand pictures! To see the huge, snaking apricot coloured dunes, Sossusvlei and the Tsauchab corridor from the air was mind-blowing - and something I'll treasure for ever. And after that, we still had Fish River Canyon, mountains and Sperrgebeit, the diamond coastand Sandwich Harbour to go! The tour of Kolmanskopp was great: another bucket-destination that we were pleased to experience but we felt we were hurried out of fascinating Kolmanskopp to get to lunch and the Luderitz tour, which was far less interesting to us.

Nevertheless, the day overall was outstanding - one we'll never forget!"

"We chose this lodge for the location and it didn't disappoint - the view over canyon really is special.

We didn't participate in many activities whilst here, because we felt like we needed a chill-out day, so we took advantage of the pool and spa facilities instead (be prepared for a very firm massage therapist).

The co-owned status of this lodge really showed itself with brilliant, warm service - and singing at dinner time to mark our anniversary, which was an overwhelming gesture.

I did have a small problem with the rooms though: because the cleanliness was a bit lacking and there were also really big spiders in the thatched roof, which came out at night!"

"The location is amazing in that the waterhole is right next to the camp - every time we went there we saw many and varied animals including elephants, giraffes, zebras and rhinos. However, this is really the only draw for Okaukuejo. Its all a bit basic, with a bureaucratic, municipal atmosphere, where nothing is included and you have to book and/or pay for all 'extras'.

The check in and out process is tiresome - it took a long time, the service was lacking, and there as a problem with the inventory, meaning we had to go back to reception to resolve it.

Also, there was no diesel in the filling station whilst we were there, which was inconvenient."

"This was a brilliant end to our trip, and a welcome bit of luxury after the hassle and bother of Okaukuejo.

The plains view room we had was brilliant - huge, luxurious with a great view of the plains and the wandering warthogs and springbok - and the food in the lodge was great quality.

But the draw here is the cats. We were really pleased to get a very up-close view of two cheetahs during our afternoon excursion.

My only regret is that we didn't stay for more nights and weren't able to go on the leopard-tracking drive. Next time!"