Everything you MUST know for self-driving Namibia

we're here to give you all the tips you need to know about self-driving Namibia we visited in 2021 and absolutely loved our trip so go check out those old videos to see what they experience was really like but we got a lot of comments and questions about how to do it things we learned so we wanted to create this video to share a little bit more of the logistics with you now now throughout this video we'll show you some clips of those so you can get a general framework of what we did but just to start by highlighting the itinerary we spent three nights starting off up in atosha on Safari before starting to move down the West Coast so the next night we drove to spitzcape before going over to sukatmund and by the way none of these are probably pronounced correctly on swakatmund we're on the west coast we did some activities based from there before we went over to the SAS display area spent the night in Camp went down to looteritz from there which is home to colemanscop the abandoned mining town and then on either side of that we spent a night in windhook China just like our travel Transportation days that gave us around 10 days of traveling around Namibia and throughout that time we spent about twenty five hundred dollars in total and that included things like lodging our vehicle which was also lodging uh gasoline groceries activities pretty much anything we spent outside of our flights to get to Namibia we'll link a map with all of our stops and all the places we visited in the description below now if you have less time you're gonna have a really hard time I think whittling down what you want to do exactly one of the challenges for Coleman's got the mining com is it was like a seven hour drive down to get there totally worth it glad we did it but if you had less time maybe that was one of the things you can cut you could also potentially cut down on your nights in atosha or think about cutting down time and wind took I'm sure that's controversial to some but that's just what we experienced now if you have extra time you could consider a lot of folks go further north east into the tiny little strip above Botswana and there's more game drives also towards Victoria Falls and we did see quite a few people who had stopped to visit with some of the local tribes and while we didn't do that it could be something interesting to add to your itinerary all right let's dive into some of our tips for planning your own trip we rented a truck with a rooftop tent that definitely helped us save some money we did that through advanced Car Hire who was super helpful honestly throughout the process and that cost us around a thousand dollars when it comes to driving yourself around another country keep in mind that it's all based on your comfort level so we do have some experience driving on the opposite side of the road and there's also a lot of different types of terrain from Sand roads gravel roads Dunes even for example there was an option for us to take our own vehicle into the sand dunes and we weren't quite comfortable with that and just kind of pictured ourselves getting stuck so we opted for a tour in that scenario but really just choose what is your comfort level I will will say the Car Hire that we went through actually provided a lot of useful information gave us some demos and gave us tips so that we could succeed on our self-drive our vehicle was a manual which I think is good to know in a lot of places but especially in Africa it often helps you save money when you're driving those big 4x4 Vehicles so that's what we opted for that being said they do have automatic vehicles that you can rent and you don't have to get a big truck to drive through there were several people who had their own smaller cars and maybe pitched a tent or stayed in cabins along the way now since you're driving on so much different terrain like Rebecca mentioned you do have to navigate that intentionally so we were often letting air out of our tires or putting more air into our tires whenever you run any of those gravel or bumpy roads you always want to have less air to make it a little bit smoother of a ride they did provide us with an air compressor on the drive and that was helpful too another thing with the vehicle that we rented is that it had a speed regulator to make sure you weren't going too fast based on terrain and GPS so there were some times when we felt like we were going so slow on somewhat Sandy roads because our speed regulator would just start beeping in the most annoying frequency to make us slow down admittedly it was always like 20 kilometers over the speed limit so it's not like we were crawling it's just the roads are so wide open and there's so much space there's no other cars around it was a little too easy to go over the speed limit which I think that's why it's there for the safety so we get it and Namibia is huge and very spread out so we had a lot of really long driving days that being said definitely want to start early so that you can maximize your time make sure you're planning for everything and then if you see a gas station fill up in addition to the long distances and the reason why you want to start early is you do want to try to be off the roads after dark I think not only is that just a general safe smart thing to do but also when finding your campsites and stuff that can be really helpful when you're getting to a new place it's after a long drive and all that conversation on how long the drives are just speaks to a fun fact that we learned about Namibia which is it's the second least densely populated country in the world right behind Mongolia I'm pretty sure so again you're driving long distances without seeing a lot in between one last thing we wanted to address around driving ourselves around Namibia is safety we never felt unsafe on that trip probably the most unsafe we felt was when we had an animal walking aggressively towards us but everyone was very friendly we never felt like we were in any kind of danger there weren't any police checks or stops like we've seen in some other countries and the roads were actually very easy to navigate moving on we can next talk about food which we really just hadn't seen a lot of information of when we were preparing for our trip we did think there were pretty limited options in some of the areas but thankfully we had our truck that had a refrigerator so we were able to buy our own grocery and windhook orasper Cotman and actually make our own meals at a lot of the camp spots having your own equipment is so essential to do that and made it really easy for us and only one or two of the camp spots even had an option to like eat on site so it was pretty essential I think that you had your own food of the couple places that we did eat out the food was really delicious I think the Highlight for us was the best fish and chips that we've had honestly in the world was a food truck on the coast in sokotmund I think it's called pork and nice it's going to be on the map so definitely check that out and we had just come from London so best fish and chips I mean you've got to go there and the last highlight I think of the food was we had read about the apple pie and Solitaire which was just a quick stop at a gas station and it was amazing so definitely make sure that that's on your trip one of the questions we've gotten a lot is what the weather was like while we were there and keep in mind we visited in July which is winter in Namibia overall I think the weather was very moderate kind of typical to what I would expect if you're going on a safari where it's cooler in the mornings and after a dark but during the day it gets pretty warm when the sun's out and then on the coast it was very windy but nothing too extreme another observation we had of Namibia is that the sunsets were incredible we hadn't really planned to necessarily seize the sunset but I think we did every single night we were there whether it was like coming back on Safari or looking out over the sand dunes and then even over the water when we were in sukratland so definitely make sure that you carve out some time to catch a namibian Sunset and another tip that might be my least favorite but also the best is to wake up early because you can go and have the sights completely to yourself I'm not saying a lot because I really like sleeping in and I can't express enough how awesome it was to be there first thing in the morning and have the entire place to yourself next up is Wi-Fi which as much as we love to stay disconnected it can honestly just be helpful even for finding information so I would say the Wi-Fi in Namibia was a struggle none of the campsites we stayed at necessarily have like an active Wi-Fi connection we did get SIM cards at the airport or at the grocery store I think right when we first got there and those were super helpful there were still times when we were disconnected but it was very affordable and easy to be able to stay connected on the go I think if we were visiting again we would probably get an e-sim but we also really loved downloading Google Maps offline because you can still navigate and have all of your pins saved that was definitely a lifesaver for us next let's transition over to some of our safari tips now this is obviously going to be specific to atosha but I think many of these are applicable no matter what site you visit so starting off in atosha one important thing I think to consider is making sure to book your sites early in all of the campsites that we stayed at which the three that we were in were halali Camp Oka cuejo and OE fonstress and I'm like doing that for memory but I'm pretty sure those are the correct three and so in each of those not only the campsites fill up but even like the chalets fill up so in one place we weren't able to Camp so we stayed indoors which was kind of a nice refresh in between but this is the peak season in Late July early August when we went so definitely recommend booking early the next and probably most important thing is how to actually see animals and navigate around the park well one of the ways to navigate the park is to purchase a park map at one of the stores or one of the entrance Gates and that's really helpful because you can see all the different roads that you can navigate and they often have tips about what type of animals you can see in each area and another thing we bought while we were there is an animal checklist and admittedly it was definitely geared towards kids but it made the Safari so much more fun especially when it came to finding Birds to identify new animals and get to check them off that little box now the most important and unique feature about atosha is the watering holes if you've looked it up at all you've probably seen that tip before but every single campsite is based on a watering hole and then throughout the park they're scattered about and that's where you find all of the wildlife and all of the action makes sense in a place like atosha where there's you know a giant salt pan and there's not a lot of water that things concentrate in terms of life around water but really all of our best sightings are at the watering hole especially at night you can go at dusk or after the sun is set in each of the campsites will have a red light or blue light pointed out at the watering hole so you can see animals and if you want to see a rhino that is definitely the way to go we had so many Rhino encounters so close to the little barrier and you're just sitting out on a bench watching them you can bring your wine with you have a snack it was incredible another tip went out on Safari really anywhere is to just make sure you're asking and talking with the locals or other guys that you see our first thing whenever we would visit any Camp was to pop into the store and chat with some of the folks who were working there and ask have you heard of any good sightings around lately and ask them to point it out on the map and then of course our best Safari tip I think anywhere is look for the cars if you see either multiple cars huddled around the same area or several cars that might look like they're driving particular to an area that's usually an indication that there's something to see you might be wondering how you actually go to the bathroom on Safari because you are out there with a bunch of wild animals and while there are campsites they are spread pretty far out thankfully they have a few stops along the way which again that Park map really comes in handy that is essentially just an enclosed gate with a building that you can use you can pull in your car park it run to the bathroom and come back out and then close the gate behind you on your way out and the next point of conversation I think is what to pack when visiting Namibia so the first thing to note is since we rented a self-drive vehicle that did include the camping top is that they have everything that we really needed in terms of like cooking sleeping and cleaning and really just any of those Basic Essentials that you need to be self-sufficient so when resting your vehicle make sure sure that your contract has a list of equipment that's being included to confirm you're not needing to bring anything extra and that vehicle did include a fridge all the pots and pans the burners sheets pillows blankets again all of those Essentials a few things that we brought with us that proved to be really important in that we use a lot uh were of course binoculars obviously you need binoculars to be able to see some of the really cool animals on Safari and even when we were not in atosha on Safari we were able to use them to see some really cool animals off in the distance in different locations that's a fun spot for a little note that we love seeing all the signs throughout Namibia that was like be aware for lions in the desert or be aware For Elephants I'm not talking about inside a Tosha these are just going from town to town so we're always on the lookout another essential item we packed are our pack towels which you can find in our Amazon Link in the description below these are essential we bring these on a lot of our trips because they're very fast drying so if you don't have access to a towel you can use them instead whether you're taking a shower or dipping in the ocean or any other type of water or even just to have a blanket to sit on we've really loved having these and we actually use these to dry off after showering since we didn't get any through our rental vehicle another thing we figured out we needed which we didn't pack but you can definitely buy in a grocery store but I don't know it could be nice to just have one or two of them wear trash bags and this is because the entire back of our covered and sealed truck was full of dust I mean again all of the terrain you drive through Namibia the sand the dust the dirt it all gets in there so our suitcases and Luggage were just covered in dust that we're always taking in and out of the car or even when we got to the airport we embarrassingly had to carry those with us on the blind even the people at the pretzels shop were like dusting it off for us like why did you put a trash bag on it we didn't know and going back to the weather when you're going on as far you're not sure what the weather is always recommend wearing a lot of layers and bringing a light jacket or a light rain jacket that way if it does get cool you can quickly bundle up and feel comfortable always a camping essential for us and especially when you're going to be arriving late waking up early is a headlamp not something you're going to want to have to try and find at the grocery store or anything like that so we always pack Ours from home a few other travel Essentials that we brought with us were related to being in the car for a long period of time so we brought cables so that we could charge our phone equipment and camera equipment in the vehicle while we were driving and also brought audio cables so that we could listen to music or podcasts I mean we had some like seven hour drives so definitely a nice way to pass the time and speaking to electronics you definitely want to make sure that you have all the SD cards and Camera even if you're not vlogging or anything you're going to be taking a lot of pictures on Safari and all the amazing namibian Landscapes so don't forget to bring more SD cards than you expect to bring and a power bank since we were self-driving we could often only charge while we were driving the vehicle so it was good to have power banks for nighttime charging and keeping all the electronics ready to go that wraps up our tips for self-driving around Namibia we had the most incredible experience and highly recommend it the Landscapes were so unique and incredible and just breathtaking hopefully we covered everything you need to know for your own self-drive Safari but if you still have any questions feel free to post them in the comments and we're happy to fill in with more information also don't forget to check out those links in the subscription like subscribe all the YouTube things we'll see you on the next adventure

Channel: St. Nick Travels

Views: 5,777

Keywords: namibia, sossusvlei, deadvlei, sesriem, spitzkoppe, etosha, etosha national park, windhoek, swakopmund

Id: DSyY3EvWVis

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023