Bradt Namibia Guidebook
Namibia travel guide. Expert tips and travel advice on everything from Windhoek highlights to Etosha National Park, Southern Kalahari, Skeleton Coast, Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei, Damaraland, Swakopmund and the Namib Desert. Also including nature watching, a wildlife field guide, getting around, safaris, lodges, hiking, horseriding and dune-boarding.
Size: 135 X 216 mm
Edition: 7
Number of pages: 552
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Bradt Namibia Guide
The latest edition of the most detailed guide to Namibia.
About this guide to Namibia
This updated Bradt Namibia Guidebook remains the longest and most detailed guidebook to this vast African country – more than twice the size of Germany but with less than 3% of the population.
With sweeping landscapes, empty roads and wildlife reserves, Namibia has long captured the imagination of photographers, independent travellers and nature enthusiasts.
Namibia’s immense emptiness offers majestic sand dunes along the Skeleton Coast, seemingly endless gravel plains, vast tracts of farmland and rugged mountains hiding galleries of ancient Bushman rock art.
Throw in exhilarating wildlife encounters and the unexpected beauty of the rivers that define the country’s northern and southern boundaries, and it’s easy to see why Namibia attracts lovers of the great outdoors.
Moreover, the country is extraordinarily diverse in human terms. Alongside the increasingly cosmopolitan feel of its capital, Windhoek, and the coastal town of Swakopmund, Namibia is home to many different cultures, among them the Himba in the Kunene region, and the Bushmen on the fringes of the Kalahari.
Written by expert author and long-standing Africa tour specialist Chris McIntyre, and updated by Liz Bazin and Chris Leggatt, this new edition incorporates all key recent changes to this comparatively inexpensive safari destination.
It provides unrivalled coverage of places to stay and eat, from small, personal guesthouses to classy hotels and upmarket game lodges, and detailed information for self-drivers (including personally researched and checked GPS coordinates) as well as for fly-in and guided safaris.
Indeed, getting around Namibia is part of its appeal: the well-maintained road network, punctuated by independent lodges, makes light of long distances.
Helping you to discover Namibia in detail, 13 chapters offer a regional breakdown, from Windhoek to the Southern Kalahari, Namib desert, Swakopmund, Skeleton Coast, the world-renowned wildlife-watching destination of Etosha National Park, and the Kavango and Zambezi regions in the extreme northeast, including excursions into neighbouring Botswana.
There’s also in-depth coverage of wildlife and where to see it, including a full-colour field guide encompassing mammals, reptiles and amphibians, marine life and birds.
In sum, this updated Bradt Namibia Guidebook remains the essential travel companion for this thrilling country.
Contents
Background Information
Practical Information
PART ONE: GENERAL INFORMATION
1 The Natural Environment
2 Namibia Wildlife Guide
3 History, Politics and Economy
4 People and Culture
5 Planning and Preparation
6 Health and Safety
7 Getting Around Namibia
8 Camping and Walking in the Bush
PART TWO: THE GUIDE
9 Windhoek
10 The Central Corridor
11 The Southern Kalahari and Fish River Canyon
12 Lüderitz and the Southwest
13 The Namib-Naukluft National Park
14 Swakopmund and Walvis Bay Area
15 The Skeleton Coast
16 The Kunene Region
17 Etosha National Park
18 Highlands South of Etosha
19 The Triangle and Bushmanland
20 Ovamboland
21 Rundu and the Kavango/Zambezi Regions (The Caprivi Strip)
Appendices: Tracks and Signs, Language, Further Information
Index
About the author and updaters
Chris McIntyre (expertafrica.com) went to Africa in 1987, after reading Physics at Queen’s College, Oxford. He taught with VSO in Zimbabwe for almost three years and travelled extensively before writing his first guidebook (Bradt’s guide to Namibia and Botswana) in 1990. He has since written Bradt’s Namibia guide as well as co-authoring (with his wife, Susie) Bradt’s guides to Botswana, Zanzibar and Zambia and (with Philip Briggs) Bradt’s guides to Tanzania.
Alongside keeping these guidebooks up to date, McIntyre is managing director of Expert Africa. This specialist tour operator organises high-quality trips for individual travellers throughout Africa, including offering a wide range of trips to Namibia. McIntyre maintains keen interests in development and conservation, acting as advisor to various NGOs. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, McIntyre lives in Surrey with his wife and co-author Susie and their two children; together they regularly travel to Africa to update guidebooks.
Liz Bazin, having spent much of her twenties working in the financial industry in Japan, took the time to explore southeast Asia and Africa, first visiting Namibia in 1999 on a side trip from a Cape Town holiday. She soon realised one week driving vast distances in a hired car wasn’t going to do the country justice. A few years later, she returned for a month, at the end of a year-long circular road trip which took her from South Africa as far north as Uganda. On this trip she had the thrill of skydiving above Swakopmund where the orange sand dunes dramatically meet the ocean. She later settled near the southern tip of Africa, where her passion for the flora and fauna of the continent motivated her to complete a master’s degree in Conservation Ecology and Biodiversity.
Chris Leggatt has run his own adventure tour business in Wilderness, South Africa, for almost 30 years. He has a long-standing relationship with Namibia, having spent many a school holiday visiting friends in Walvis Bay and travelling to remote corners of the country on bird ringing expeditions. On one such trip, at the tender age of 15, he climbed Spitzkoppe – a memory he will always cherish. In 1991 he became a river rafting guide, first on the Orange River and later the Kunene, which involved putting in many miles over the entire length and breadth of Namibia.