Information Namibia

Status February 16, update February 18

Food

In nearly every little village you can find a supermarket. Spar – the German Discounter chain – is very visible here. Unfortunately the vegetables are not always fresh. A pitty that you hardly find local open markets. International products and brands you can easily find – shopping like at home.

Water

On most of the campsites you get drinkable water, most of the times for free.

Diesel

Petrol stations are well spread over the country. At least every 200km you find one. The quality of the Diesel is good, works for modern engines as well. Just make sure that you get the 50ppm diesel. You can pay with credit card.

Money

ATM you will find in any bigger village. Often the maximum withdrawal amount is 3’300 NAD. Most shops though accept the international credit cards.

Overnight places

Apart from the national parks, where it is not allowed to camp outside the camp sites, you can stand free – with the usual respect of course. The biggest issue though are the fences. If you find the respective farm you can always ask for a place to stay – most of the time that is no problem.

Internet

Like in most of the countries we’ve bought a local SIM card with data at the border. The internet coverage is good, but not always very fast. Compared to the surrounding countries though quite expensive.

Streets

The main roads (north/south/east/west) are paved; all the rest are gravel or earth tracks. We found the gravel roads often equally good than the paved ones.

Our Highlights

1. Etoscha Pan (Nationalpark)
2. Spitzkoppe (wonderful landscape) S21 50.268 E15 10.113
3. Himbas (archaic live and cultur)
4. Track D 1068 (very different landscape & adventurous road) S25 12.480 E18 04.018
5. Africat (reserve for wild cats) S20 50.079 E16 39.132
6. Fish River Canyon (sensational landscape)
7. Kupferquelle (premium camping) S19 15.555 E17 42.573
8. Waterberg (hiking mountain and landscape) S20 28.615 E17 18.240
9. Oranje River drive (amazing landscape)
10. Piste D 511 (rollercoaster: road winding along many hills) S25 36.178 E19 26.298

Our highlights are listed on the route map as waypoints H01 – H10.

Regulations for heavy motor vehicles

The only thing the police pointed out was the row of LED flashlight above the front window. These specific lights must not be used on public roads or in every day traffic.

Customs formalities

The immigration – coming from Angola – was an easy administration routine. First step: stamp the visa, second step: stamp the carnet de passage and then thirdly pay the roadtax.  So really easy, but the problem were the huge amount of people who wanted the same and the highly inefficient way of working of the admin folks. It took us nearly about 3 hours in St. Clara to get into Namibia. Never seen before or after.

Visa cost for 2 persons: 0 NAD
Trafficker: 0 NAD
Photocopies: 0 NAD
Roadtax Globi: 800 NAD
Roadtax Ernstli: 0 NAD
Further fees were not charged at customs. All fees are to be paid in cash.

Our statistics

Daily expenses for 2 persons:

Personal observations

Since our last visit 2 years ago live became far more expensive – based on our stats and our observations.

20 years ago one could find so called guest farms in Namibia. These were most of the time located far off and they offered a bed and meals. All the guests were welcome in the family. As a traveller you had personal contact with the farmer family – extremely nice. Today the tourism has become more professional and most of the guest farms – even if they are still calling themselves like this – are now more like hotels or professional campsites. Understandable, but it takes away the charm of the personal relationship.

And based on the social differences the security in general seems to drop quite a bit.

Our recommendation

Tina Schröder offers car insurance in Southern Africa on very good terms.

Anita (Tina) Schröder, Mobile: +264 (0) 81 360 7404, anitaschroder@africaonline.com.na