Entered from Botswana via the Trans Kalahari border post (Mamuno → Gogabis → Windhoek). Stayed at TaTe Village BackPacker both on arrival and again on the return leg before departing via Ethiopian Airlines toward Addis Ababa.
The coastal stop, reached from Windhoek — part of a run that continued to Sossusvlei and Lüderitz further south.
Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, reached crossing the Tropic of Capricorn — the desert heart of the Namibia leg.
The southernmost stop of the trip — the diamond coast, before the long return north to Windhoek. 17 days in Namibia total, the longest single-country stay of the whole African leg.
A waypoint on the highway back north from Lüderitz — the return leg's first real stop before continuing on to Mariental and Windhoek.
Between Keetmanshoop and Windhoek on the return leg north — the last waypoint before closing the loop back at the capital.
May–October is for the desert interior — cooler, dry, better wildlife visibility. The Swakopmund coast runs cool and foggy most of the year regardless, so the desert-vs-coast timing trade-off matters more than the calendar month. This trip ran August, within the good window.
Base camp was TaTe Village BackPacker — "home away from home," per the trip's own record of it. Days here included the Drum Cafe (the standout "one fun thing to do in Windhoek"), a full day covering the museum, church, and art gallery downtown, an evening at Matargasti, and a night of camping and stargazing at Daan Viljoen Game Reserve just outside the city, in the company of a German family met along the way.
The adventure-sports stretch: quad-biking in the Namib Desert, surfing and a stop with the Salty Jackals surf crew, beach time on the Atlantic coast, and skydiving with Namibia's Flying Club — by far the most-watched moment of the whole trip online. Also crossed paths with a group of touring cyclists in town.
Sossusvlei reached via the Tropic of Capricorn, then Deadvlei itself — Namibia's tallest dune country, and a real photographer's stop. From there, a run out to Lüderitz on the diamond coast, where the story of diamonds turning up across the region gets told properly.
| Item | Amount | |
|---|---|---|
| TaTe Village BackPacker, Windhoek — 2-night dorm bed (28–30 Aug) | NAD 550.24 (~$32) | Card |
| Skydiving, Swakopmund (Namibia's Flying Club, via Adrenaline Hunter/Manawa) | ~$300 (estimate) | — |
| Western Digital 1TB external hard drive, Windhoek | ~$55 / NAD 950 (estimate) | — |
Both marked "estimate" are ballpark figures based on typical 2022 pricing for tandem skydiving and external hard drives in the region — not receipts. Happy to swap in the real numbers whenever you track them down.
The skydiving package needed a follow-up after the fact: the first video cut was too short, so the operator added slow-motion to the freefall clip and included the raw footage, plus footage from two other jumpers that day (a German traveler and a Chinese traveler).
How much range fit into one country. Seventeen days here — the longest stretch of the whole Africa trip — held a genuinely wide spread: skydiving over Swakopmund, quad-biking the Namib dunes, surfing with a crew called the Salty Jackals, a night of stargazing and hiking with a German family at Daan Viljoen, and a fossil-dry drive to Lüderitz for the diamond-coast history. Namibia wasn't one experience stretched thin over 17 days — it was closer to five or six different trips that happened to share a border.
NAD 550 (~$32) for 2 nights at TaTe Village in Windhoek, well below what a hotel would run, and it became a real "home base" across two separate stays.
The footage needed a redo here because the first cut was too short — ask upfront exactly how much raw footage you'll get, especially if documenting the trip matters to you.
If you're planning a similar Southern Africa loop, Namibia rewards a longer stay more than a quick pass-through, given how much ground there is between Windhoek, Swakopmund, and the desert south.