Namibia

Namibia is one of Africa’s least populated and most visually striking countries, where desert landscapes stretch from the South African border to the Angolan frontier. The Namib, the world’s oldest desert, pushes rust-red dunes directly to the Atlantic coastline, creating a landscape found nowhere else on earth. 

The classic Namibia road trip takes in the towering dunes of Sossusvlei, where the tallest sand dunes on earth rise above bleached white clay pans dotted with skeletal trees. Further north, Etosha National Park centres on a vast mineral pan that acts as a magnet for wildlife during the dry season, drawing elephant, lion, rhino, and cheetah to its waterholes in remarkable concentrations. The Skeleton Coast, a forbidding stretch of Atlantic shoreline littered with shipwrecks and seal colonies, has a desolate beauty. Namibia also boasts one of Africa’s most captivating cultural landscapes, including the ancient rock engravings of Twyfelfontein, the surreal moonscape of Damaraland, and the remote Kaokoveld, home to the Himba people and desert-adapted elephants.