Fly-in safari & self-drive Namibia tour combo
Tour Package18 Days / 17 Nights | Person AllowPeople: 5 | Tour LocationNamibia |
Highlights
Windhoek, Kalahari Desert, Fish River Canyon, Sossusvlei & Sesriem Canyon + Deadvlei (Unesco World Heritage Site), Swakopmund, Damaraland, Desert Adapted Elephants, Etosha National Park – Experience the abundance of wildlife in their natural habitat, variety of landscapes and geological features, and the opportunity to meet the San bushmen. Exclusive
Information
Included
✓ 17 x nights accommodation
✓ 17 x breakfast
✓ 15 x dinner
✓ 13 x days 4×4 vehicle
✓ Representative on call 24/7
✓ Personal meeting in Windhoek
✓ 1 x Namibia book
Excluded
❌ Park entrance fees or park permits at National parks
❌ Personal expenses e.g. telephone, drinks, meals not mentioned, souvenirs, tips & gratuities
❌ International Flights
❌ Optional activities
❌ Petrol for rental car and extras e.g. contract fee, driver sign up fee
❌ Travel Insurance or Visa Fees
Tour Program
This tour program is intended as a suggestion, and depending on your wishes, schedule and budget, we will be happy to put together a tailor-made program for you.
BB = Overnight stay | Breakfast
DBB = Dinner | Overnight stay | Breakfast
FB = Lunch or lunch packages | Dinner | Overnight stay | Breakfast, activities and activity
Day 1: Overnight stay: Lodge in the Kalahari (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Flight arrival in the morning from Germany. Your pilot will welcome you in the arrivals hall at Hosea Kutako Airport.
10kg of luggage (packed in soft bags) is allowed per person for the flying safari.
The remaining luggage can be collected personally by a Trip Tours representative. Your luggage will be delivered safely to your hotel in Swakopmund.
Your private fly-in safari can now begin. You fly to Mariental, flight time approx. 01:05 hours. A representative of the lodge will welcome you at Mariental Airport. The car transfer to the lodge takes approx. 45 minutes. The afternoon is at leisure. We recommend booking a sundowner tour into the Kalahari savannah directly with the lodge (optional). This activity is offered in an open and comfortable off-road vehicle. The guide will be happy to share his knowledge and passion for this area with you. This is a tour to get to know the Kalahari with its unforgettable landscapes, fauna and flora. Alternatively, you can explore the Kalahari on foot, a map with hiking trails is available at the reception.
Day 2: Overnight: Lodge at the Fish River Canyon (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
The morning hours are free for you to spend as you wish. Before breakfast, you can go on an optional Bushman tour with the lodge, where you can learn a lot about this indigenous people. Check out at around 10h00 and continue on to the Fish River Canyon. The afternoon is at leisure, optionally you can take part in a sundowner cruise or go on a hike in this picturesque setting.
The Fish River is the longest river in Namibia with a length of 650 kilometers. A very long time ago, it set off from the Naukluft Mountains in search of the Orange River in the south of the country. But mountains stood in its way and so, over 120 million years of painstaking work, it created the largest canyon in Africa: the Fish River Canyon, an igneous labyrinth in which temperatures of 50 degrees are nothing special. Your accommodation is located right on the edge of the canyon.
Days 3: Overnight stay: Lodge at the Fish River Canyon(dinner | overnight stay | breakfast & canyon drive)
The four-wheel drive starts before sunrise with brunch in the Fish River Canyon. The vehicle winds its way through the various layers of the massive canyon. 650 million years ago, you would have been standing on the bottom of a sea here. If you look down into the depths of up to 550m, you get the feeling of standing on the edge of eternity. Few places in the world reveal the layers of the earth as dramatically as the Fish River Canyon. A light lunch en route is also included before returning to your lodge in the afternoon.
Day 4: Overnight stay: Lodge in the Sossusvlei area (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today, after a leisurely breakfast, you will depart for Lüderitz where the plane will refuel – onward flight to the Sesriem area very close to the famous Sossusvlei sights, where you will spend the next two nights. Optionally, you can book a sundowner nature tour in the Namib Desert directly with the lodge.
Day 5: Overnight: Lodge in the Sossusvlei area (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Optional: Today you should book an excursion to Sossusvlei with the lodge to explore the highest dunes in the world, the Vleis and the smaller Sesriem Canyon. This guided activity starts at sunrise with a guided four-wheel drive to the spectacular Sossusvlei dunes. The dune landscape in the morning light offers an unforgettable scenery.
For many years, the sporadically flowing water of the Tsauchab dry river has been fighting its way through the ever-growing dune landscape of the Namib Desert. However, it will never reach the sea, but seeps into a natural dune dam. Sossusvlei is surrounded by the highest dunes in the world, which suck the last bit of strength out of your legs as you climb them. Once you reach the top, you are richly rewarded with a fantastic view. Dune 45 is the most popular dune to climb.
Day 6: Overnight: Hotel Swakopmund (bed | breakfast)
The fly-in safari now takes you further north over the endless landscapes of the Namib to the coastal town of Swakopmund. You will fly over many different dune formations, an old diamond ghost town and a shipwreck.
The rental car is handed over at Swakopmund Airport. Your self-drive safari starts here with the drive to your hotel. The rest of the day is at leisure and you can also explore the town on foot.
Day 7: Overnight: Hotel Swakopmund (bed | breakfast)
The day is at your leisure. This morning you have the option of taking part in a catamaran boat trip. Other activities such as desert tours or quad biking are also an option in Swakopmund and the surrounding area.
Catamaran cruise: Between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, on the rugged coast of the Atlantic Ocean, you will experience the unique nature and wildlife of the Walvis Bay lagoon on board a spacious and comfortable catamaran. The four-hour trip takes you from the industrial harbor across the Walvis Bay oyster beds out to Pelican Point, home to a large colony of fur seals. The tour offers many highlights. Among other things, pelicans are hand-fed in flight. You will learn many interesting things about these animals.
The Desert Tour, also known as the Living Desert Tour, is a unique experience in 4WD vehicles that aims to introduce our visitors to the impressive beauty of the Namib Desert and showcase life in the desert. The coastal dune belt, which may seem barren and lifeless to some, is home to a fascinating variety of small animals that have adapted to the desert. They survive thanks to the fog that regularly rolls in from the cold Atlantic Ocean. A unique opportunity to experience the desert up close.
Other optional activities in Swakopmund and the surrounding area: golfing, quad biking, camel riding, visit to the museum, aquarium, riding safari, flight over the Skeleton Coast.
Day 8: Overnight stay: Lodge near Twyfelfontein (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
he self-drive safari continues north on the salt road towards Henties Bay via Uis into Damaraland.
Both regions in the northwest are characterized by lonely expanses and barren desert landscapes, which are repeatedly interrupted by green oases and are home to the famous desert elephants.
You arrive at your accommodation in the early afternoon. Damaraland offers a wealth of geological and archaeological highlights. Named after the Damara people, the region is home to Namibia’s highest peak, the Brandberg, and Twyfelfontein, one of the most important rock engravings and paintings of the San, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Day 9: Overnight: Lodge near Twyfelfontein (Dinner | Overnight | Breakfast)
Today we recommend that you book a tour directly with the lodge in the morning in search of the desert elephants that occur in the area. These have adapted to their arid semi-desert environment by having a smaller body mass with proportionally longer legs and seemingly larger feet than other elephants. They survive by eating moisture-rich vegetation that grows in ephemeral riverbeds and by going several days without drinking water. Sometimes they have to travel long distances to reach a water source
In the afternoon, you have the option of visiting the rock engravings at Twyfelfontein on your own. The Twyfelfontein area is famous for some of the best Bushman drawings and rock engravings in Southern Africa. Interesting rock formations and the remains of prehistoric volcanic activity include the Organ Pipes, Burnt Mountain, Doros Crater and Petrified Forest.
Day 10: Overnight stay: Lodge on the Grootberg Plateau (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today you will continue your journey to the Grootberg Massif in Damaraland, where you will spend the next two nights in this picturesque landscape. Optionally, you can take part in a sundowner tour on the plateau.
Day 11: Overnight: Lodge on the Grootberg Plateau (Dinner | Overnight | Breakfast)
Optional: Today you should take part in a guided rhino tracking activity, or consider a desert elephant tour if you have not yet spotted them. The lodge also offers guided walks in this picturesque area.
Days 12: Overnight stay: Lodge outside Etosha National Park (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today you continue north to the famous Etosha National Park. Here, just outside the central Andersson Gate, you have an overnight stay on a private game reserve. Optionally, you can go on a game drive with the lodge on the reserve, which has a large number of different game species.
Day 13: Overnight: Lodge on the Etosha East side (dinner | overnight | breakfast)
You leave the lodge this morning and drive into the Etosha National Park. This is a full day game drive in Etosha Park on your own. Right from the entrance you have the opportunity to spot big game in their natural habitat.
The Etosha National Park has a biodiversity that is hard to beat. A variety of animals gather at the waterholes, which can make for a spectacular experience. Every single waterhole has a unique character. For example, the Okondeka waterhole is one of the best for lion spotting. The predator can often be spotted here with prey. The waterhole is a natural spring and is located a little further north of Okaukuejo directly on the western edge of the pan.
Etosha National Park has a firm place on the world map of national parks. The numerous herds of animals are dependent on the waterholes for most of the year – ideal conditions for observing and photographing the animals.
In the late afternoon, you will arrive at the park’s east gate, the Von Lindequist Gate. Here you leave the park and after a short drive you reach your accommodation.
Day 14: Overnight: Lodge on Etosha East National Park (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today you have another opportunity to drive to various waterholes on the east side of the park in your rental car. Set off early to drive into the park right at the opening of the gates. At one particular waterhole there is usually a leopard resting in the tree after its nightly hunt. Return to your lodge in the late afternoon.
Day 15: Overnight stay: Lodge at the Waterberg (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
On the drive to the Waterberg, it is worth making a detour to the Hoba meteorite.
This is probably the largest lump of iron (over 50 tons) of its kind and is worth seeing for this reason alone. Isotope studies suggest an impact 80000 years ago. A special feature of the meteorite is that there are no signs of impact craters or similar, as is to be expected with a meteorite of this size. Continue via Otjiwarongo to the Waterberg region. Your accommodation is located directly on the Waterberg. In the afternoon, you can take part in an optional nature tour to explore this special environment.
Day 16: Overnight: Lodge at the Waterberg(dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today you have the opportunity to explore the Waterberg Plateau Park on your own.
The Table Mountain massif, which is 20 kilometers wide and 50 kilometers long, consists of porous sandstone. Precipitation seeps through the permeable rock and meets an impermeable clay layer at the bottom. While it is very dry at the top of the plateau, there is plenty of surface water and powerful permanent springs at the foot. The vegetation here is therefore comparatively lush and green and particularly rich in species.
Thanks to reintroduction, the two rhino species found in Namibia, white and black rhino, the only known healthy groups of African buffalo, sable, roan and tsessebe, as well as leopards and cheetahs, are also present today.
The lodge also offers optional afternoon rhino tracking drives, which occur on the reserve.
Day 17: Overnight: Lodge near Otjiwarongo (dinner | overnight stay | breakfast)
Today’s drive takes you back via Otjiwarongo and a little further on to a private game reserve that is dedicated to the welfare of African cats, among other things. Here you can take part in an optional leopard tracking activity in the afternoon, but other informative activities are also on offer.
Day 18: Return flight.
The journey today takes you back to the capital Windhoek. If time permits, you can buy a souvenir in Windhoek that you have not yet found. The Bushmen Art Souvenirs, Ernst Holz, and the Craft Center are suitable.
Return your rental car in good time before departure, at Hosea Kutako Airport.
