On our first drive in Namibia, I instinctively began a mental catalogue of the animals I had been lucky enough to spot on the winding road that led us into Wilderness Damaraland camp. An Angolan giraffe; a common duiker; a springbuck; elephants. Though what I quickly realised as the day went on is that this type of record keeping simply doesn’t do justice to what a unique, cultural experience a trip to Namibia is. In fact, this is only a glimpse of what this extraordinary country has to offer.
Unlike any place I’ve ever visited in both landscape and heart, it’s the people who live alongside the wildlife that make this beautiful southern African country so special.
Local communities relentlessly protect and co-exist with nature in one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems: from our Wilderness guide Clement who read the ochre sand at Serra Cafema like a morning newspaper, to former chef Leslie who crafted his own desert oasis community garden from years worth of carefully-gathered seeds and the Himba people whose traditions shape the land as much as the wind does.
Truly, our journey through Damaraland, Hoanib Skeleton Coast and Serra Cafema revealed a Namibia where wilderness isn’t something you simply observe – it’s something you inevitably become a part of.
Our journey began at Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city. Here, we refuelled from our travels on deliciously tender Namibian fillet steaks before sinking into our suitably plush beds at Hotel Heinitzburg ahead of our flight transfer into the rugged landscapes of Damaraland the next morning.
Damaraland
Setting off for camp in a five-seater plane was as tiny and terrific as it sounds. From the back seat of the aircraft (in which I was able to touch both sides of the plane), I watched the landscape shift from the greener cityscape of Windhoek to open plains, sculpted deserts and rich red rock. It occurred to me: I wonder if I’ve ever been somewhere so remote and relatively untouched by humans before? And if the views were impressive from our bird’s eye view, my awe at the extraordinary landscapes only grew by the time we were on land and making our way to Damaraland Camp.
Wilderness’ first ever camp, Damaraland, sits amid Namibia’s dramatic desert plains, ancient valleys and the Brandberg Mountains. Set against a palette of deep rusts, the camp itself is stunning, consisting of 10 thatched unit rooms with uninterrupted open landscape vistas and striking silence.
The result of a pioneering partnership between Torra Conservancy and Wilderness, you need only speak to the guides and staff at the camp to realise that this joint effort has been a success in every sense of the word. From Lianina who has been at Damaraland camp for 29 years and worked her way up the ranks to our guide Silvester who grew up in the area and knows more about the setting than anyone else. 200 people were trained at Damaraland last year, with each guide and staff member having a story that weaves into the fabric of the place.
Nearby, Leslie’s community garden glows green against the desert backdrop, with the recently launched initiative already yielding watermelon, aubergine, tomatoes and even mangoes. Having started as a chef at Damaraland camp, Leslie set up the community garden using seeds he’d collected over the years to produce crops that can be sold back to local camps. “We chase elephants away sometimes,” he told us, laughing, “but it’s worth it.”
The following day, we visited the nearby village of De Riet, where we were fortunate to see several community projects in action. At the De Riet Women’s Project we saw first-hand the sustainable livelihood opportunities created by empowering women with skills such as sewing to produce wonderbags that Wilderness then sells and distributes to generate income for the community. We also visited the poultry project, which supports the wider village by supplying fresh, locally produced eggs from its flock of 47 chickens.
Ultimately, what stood out most during our time in Damaraland was the genuinely considered and community-led approach to conservancy. Wilderness works closely with local people, offering practical support and resources while ensuring that initiatives deliver meaningful, tangible benefits to the locals. Leaving Damaraland – and the friends we made there, with their incomparable warmth and hospitality – was a genuinely bittersweet moment.
Nightly rates start from £394 per person.
Hoanib Skeleton Coast
When you first arrive at Hoanib Skeleton Coast, you almost feel as though you’ve landed on the moon, and I say this in the best possible way. It’s the kind of landscape that seems as though it would be impossible to inhabit and therefore all the more special that you’re physically there, seeing it for yourself. I have never visited anywhere so visually shocking, with this being one of the world’s oldest deserts.
It’s here you’ll find rocks that are over one million years old, caves created from sand blasts over the years and mica that twinkles beautifully in the golden sunlight. Yet despite the vast, dry ecosystem, on the ground it’s very much alive. Our nine-room camp overlooked a valley where baboons played beside my room and sand bees hummed by the terrace.
This part of the world is also home to some of the last remaining desert adapted lions, immortalised in the acclaimed Vanishing Kings documentary (which we were privileged to be able to watch the third installation of during our trip). Having this context of the lions’ history and upbringing meant that it felt all the more special when we did finally find Alpha and Obi lounging in the shade on an evening safari drive.
Here, projects are centred on conservation and research of desert lions, elephants, hyenas and giraffes, with us having the opportunity to learn more about the often misunderstood brown hyena through the work of the ongoing Brown Hyena Research Project. Animals living in Hoanib Skeleton Coast have to be in their prime to survive amid such a harsh environment, so only the most adaptable endure, being perfectly attuned to the extremes of the desert.
Yet, as we learnt on a trip to Skeleton Coast, you need only drive out of camp a few hours to see the landscapes completely change again. From the window of our 4x4, I watched in awe as the scenery transformed: rocky mountains and dry riverbeds giving way to sweeping floodplains, then rising into immense dunes, until, at last, we reached the stark coast. The Skeleton Coast, to be specific.
Having earned its name from the many whale bones and skeletal remains of shipwrecks that litter its shore, fog here rolls in like theatre smoke. With over 500 shipwrecks serving as rusted reminders of those who underestimated the sea, what you will find living here is a colony of more than 200,000 seals that you inevitably smell before you see. It’s safe to say that we were grateful not to have the same smell back at camp.
All in all, our time at Hoanib Skeleton Coast was an education in how remarkably wildlife has adapted to exist within these conditions and the importance of efforts to monitor and support these animals through conservancy. A reminder that wilderness is not empty, but instead very carefully inhabited by the creatures that have been shaped by such extremes.
Nightly rates start from £820 per person.
Serra Cafema
If I was caught off guard by the landscapes of our two previous camps, then truly nothing could have prepared me for the beauty we met at Serra Cafema. Driving from the nearby airstrip through Hartmann Valley, we found ourselves dropped into the most stunningly remote and arid landscape where desert meets the Angolan border. Fluttering ribbons of air are twisted by the heat, while the dunes themselves seem to almost breathe in the breeze. Then, almost improbably, the Kunene River reveals itself, a ribbon of green life cutting through the desert. Roads disappear overnight, lost to the sands, so you need to know your way around here very well, and thankfully our guide Clement very much did.
But without a doubt those who know the region better than anyone else are the Himba people, Namibia’s last remaining semi-nomadic tribe whose way of life has remained largely unchanged from their ancestors. Participating in a cultural exchange one morning, we had the pleasure of their hospitality and the opportunity to meet Krokodil, a Himba matriarch who earned her name after surviving a crocodile attack years prior. Visiting this remote setting where community is everything, you can’t help but be confronted with how entwined their way of living is with the land itself, inevitably being guided by tradition and an intimate understanding of the environment that no guidebook could ever convey.
As in Damaraland and Hoanib, here community projects are tailored to the region’s unique needs, with the area being a conservancy that is protected by Wilderness though controlled by the local community. This joint venture serves as a means of empowering the area's inhabitants, with many Himba people even working at Serra Cafema camp. Beyond this, however, the partnership has meant that the Himba people now benefit from essential services such as water and clinic access. Here, conservation efforts have been designed to facilitate low-impact tourism that genuinely reinvests in the community rather than undermining it.
Nightly rates start from £683 per person.
In this sense our trip to Namibia was truly unlike any other holiday, or even safari trip, I have ever been on. Frankly, to describe this as a safari holiday feels genuinely limiting, because it was so much more than that. I had no idea what to expect from a trip to Namibia, and it’s safe to say that I saw landscapes more beautiful than any I could have ever dreamed up and had the opportunity to soak up invaluable insights into the region from all of the friendly faces who make these remote communities so special.
So yes, while I returned from Namibia with a long list of beautiful wildlife I had been lucky enough to see first-hand, the real magic of these places undoubtedly comes from the human stories within them.
To book your own experience with Wilderness, visit wildernessdestinations.com.
