Useful things to know before travelling to Namibia
Coming with a definitive list of all the things you should bring or plan for before your travel to Namibia is not an easy task as it would highly depends on your personalities and the way in you intend to travel through the country. I would nonetheless share with you some recommendations and thoughts from our own experience. Once you are in Namibia, except for a few places like Windhoek or Swakopmund, you won’t have many opportunities to do some shopping. You should therefore make sure you have everything you need before you embark on your journey.
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
Book in advance
Although Namibia is not (yet) a place crowded with tourists, lodges and camping sites in Etosha, the Namib-Naukluft National Park as well as some other areas are often fully booked for the peak season many months in advance. Many lodges are small, individual establishments and as such do not have many rooms available. We planned our trip almost a year in advance and some lodges were already fully booked.
Consider self-driving
Namibia perfectly lends itself to self-driving. The driving was actually one of our favourite part of the trip. It also gives you the freedom to stop whenever you want and to explore the places you wish to at your own rhythm. As you will spend an important part of your journey on gravel roads, there are a few things you should be aware of to ensure you have the best possible experience.
Respect the speed limits (80 km/h on gravel roads and 120 km/h on tarred roads). It is particularly important that you respect the speed limit on gravel roads. Although you might be temped to drive faster as those are in quite good conditions, remember that most accidents in Namibia are not due to collisions but rather involve a driver going too fast on gravel roads and losing control of the vehicle.
Don’t drive at night. Wildlife is very active at night and is most likely to be present near the roads. Coupled with poor light conditions, the risk of accident increases significantly.
I would also recommend to have two spare tyres. During our 4500 km journey, we actually had three flat tyres, one per week on average. Luckily, those were just small tyre punctures and we could always have them repaired in the lodges where we were staying. Friends we know went the year before and had to replace twice the entire tyre, while another family that went a few weeks before us did not have any incidents. So it will depend on your luck, but you should definitely be prepared. Changing a tyre is very easy and quickly done. If you never changed a tyre, listen carefully the instructions the car rental company will give you while receiving your vehicle.
Always fill up your car when you can. We had a car that had two tanks (80l and 60l) and felt very comfortable having this safety net. In some areas, fuel stations become quite sparse and difficult to find.
The type of vehicle you need (2WD vs. 4X4) depends on your itinerary. Some places are only accessible by 4X4. In our case, to be on the safe side and to make sure that we could explore the entire country at ease we decided to rent a 4X4 Toyota Fortuner.
Don’t forget to bring along an international driver’s license if your driver’s license is not in english. Finally, make sure you always have plenty of water and snacks with you.
Distances are long
Namibia is a very vast country and distances between places are not to be underestimated. As you will spend an important part of your journey on gravel roads, your drive times will be even longer than expected.
Spending some time to think carefully about your itinerary and the pace at which you wish to travel is crucial. You wouldn’t want to end up spending most of the time in the car, not having time to fully explore all those otherworldly landscapes. You might also want to allow for some time to briefly pause and let the experiences sink in before moving on to the next one.
Also note that you should usually hit the road early morning to be sure to arrive at your destination before dusk. Activities are usually undertaken early in the morning or late afternoon, so you’ll need to make sure you allow time for those while planning your trip.
Temperatures vary wildly
The Namibian climate is characterised by very wide range in temperature within one day. During the summer school holidays (July and August), the temperature is generally very pleasant during the day (20-25 degrees), but the nights are much colder. During our stay we actually had days where the temperature went from 4° in the morning to 32° in the afternoon. Those high temperatures were unusual for that period though.
Given those wild swings, you should definitely plan for different layers of clothes to adjust as those temperatures change throughout the day. You will need warm clothes especially in the morning when going on open-air safari tours or if you decide to go on a boat cruise on the Atlantic Ocean in Walvis Bay.
Sand and dust everywhere
Sand and dust are everywhere. Everything you have in the car will quickly be covered in dust while you drive on those gravel roads. If you cary expensive electronics with you, don’t forget to cover them well. We had wet wipes with us for our daughter but ended up using them almost exclusively for cleaning the dust inside of the car and on our luggages.
THINGS YOU SHOULD BRING ON YOUR JOURNEY TO NAMIBIA
Buy a local SIM card. We bought ours at a small MTC store, conveniently located at the Windhoek airport arrival hall. At the time of writing, there were two main mobile telecommunications companies : MTC and Telecom Namibia.
According to the information we could gather, MTC seemed to have the better network coverage. This being said, you should not expect the speed you might be used to at home. In many areas outside the main cities, although we did have coverage, the internet was very slow. This means that we could easily send a message or use Google map but if you want send over an image, this could take a while and sometimes just not work at all. There are also some places where there is no network coverage at all. So if you plan to use Google maps for navigation as we did, I strongly suggest that you download offline maps before your journey.
Prices are very reasonable. We bought the “super Aweh” package for N$ 65 - USD 4.4 and EUR 4.0 at the time. This package gives you 700 minutes of local calls, 1500 texts and 3GB of data. It lasts for 7 days after the activation. As we were staying three weeks, we bought directly three “super Aweh” package. I would recommend to take a picture of your voucher just to be on the safe side in case you were to lose it later on.
Make sure you bring the right camera gear along. If you have an interchangeable lenses camera, make sure you do have a good telephoto lens (long focal lens). If you own a fixed lens compact camera make sure the optical zoom has sufficient reach.
Before going to Namibia, I rarely felt the need to use longer focal length than 135mm (full frame). I bought the Sony FE 70-200 mm f4.0 G just before going on this trip and was certainly glad I did. The Namibian landscape is so vast I actually ended up using this lens much more than I thought I would. However, while on safari, there were several occasions where 200mm was clearly not enough. More details on camera equipment further down.
Nobody dresses up in Namibia even in the luxury lodges. So just travel light and bring practical, breathable and comfortable clothes. Don’t forget to bring a hat and protecting clothing, especially if you are travelling with kids, as the sun can be quite strong. During safaris, it is preferable to avoid bright colours.
Ps : We brought our swimming suits with us but almost never went into the water as it was extremely cold. With their cold nights, July and August are not the best months to relax in the swimming pool.
Bring sun cream with a high factor SPF.
A down jacket, preferably lightweight but warm, will be immensely valuable for the cold Namibian winter mornings and evenings - this is particularly the case for the months of July and August.
Another very important item you should bring on your journey to Namibia is a pair of good walking shoes or even better, light ankle-high shoes to protect from scratches and stings.
Plug adaptors D/M. The power plugs and sockets in Namibia are of type D and M. The standard voltage in Namibia is between 220 -240 V and frequency 50 Hz.
With a plug adaptor D/M, you can therefore use your electric appliances in Namibia, if the standard voltage in your country is within that range (Europe, UK, Australia, most of Asia and Africa).
If you come from a country where the standard voltage is 100 -127V (as in the US and Canada), it will depend on the type of appliances you have. If the input reads 100-240V, 50/60Hz, it is a dual voltage device and it can accept both 110-120V and 220-240V. A dual voltage appliance can be used everywhere in the world given you have the right plug adaptor. Luckily, it is quite common for appliances designed for travel use to be dual-voltage. If the input read 100-127V, then you will need a voltage converter and a plug adaptor.
Binoculars. Those will be very helpful on safari.
Namibia is a very dry country where it is very easy to get dehydrated. Make sure you always have plenty of water with you. You should also bring along moisturiser, lip balm, vaseline, etc.
First aid kit and medicine.
Insect repellent.
MY CAMERA GEAR FOR THIS JOURNEY
I have a Sony a7iii camera and took the following lenses along : Sony 16-35mm f 2.8, 70-200mm f 4.0, 55mm 1.8 and the 90mm 2.8 macro.
There were a couple of times where I wished I had a longer zoom (up to 400mm). However, with a full frame camera, a lens with a longer zoom would have been quite big to carry around. While on a safari though, you would be surprised how big of a zoom you need to get a clear picture of an animal in the wild, unless you are actually quite close to it.
If you have a smaller sensor camera (Micro Four Thirds or APS-C sensors), those long focal lenses are relatively smaller and easier to bring along. A fixed lens compact camera with sufficient reach would also have been a good option for those few shots that needed a longer reach. For example, the Sony RX10 IV, with a 1-inch sensor is paired with a 24-600mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens.
I will not even begin to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each sensor sizes and systems as there are many websites that go into great details about that subject. In short, the bigger the sensor, the higher the image quality should be. But it does come at the price of having costlier and heavier camera equipment. If you are new to photography, you should investigate which system is best for your needs.
Besides your camera equipment, you should also bring enough memory cards to last the entire journey.
If you have an interchangeable lenses camera, bring accessories to remove dust and clean your sensor. You might want to watch a few videos on how to clean you sensor safely in advance rather than waiting until you end up in a tent in the middle of the desert with an internet that won’t let you watch any tutorials.
If you want to take pictures at night, don’t forget to bring your tripod.
