Luderitz
Lüderitz is a harbour town in south-west Namibia, lying on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa. It is a port developed around Robert Harbour and Shark Island. In 1909, after the discovery of diamonds nearby, Lüderitz enjoyed a sudden surge of prosperity. Today, however, diamonds are mostly found elsewhere and offshore, and Lüderitz has lost a lot of this interest. Just outside of Lüderitz lies the ghost town of Kolmanskop. This previously bustling diamond town is now abandoned, and fights a constant struggle against being buried under the shifting sand dunes of the Namib Desert. Another ghost town called Elizabeth Bay lies 30 km to the south. The town has also re-styled itself in an attempt to lure tourists to the area, which includes a new waterfront area for shops and offices. Lüderitz has a mild desert climate with pleasant temperatures throughout the year. The average annual precipitation is 23 mm.
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Skeleton Coast & Kaokoland
The Skeleton Coast is the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean coast of Namibia and south of Angola from the Kunene River south to the Swakop River, although the name is sometimes used to describe the entire Namib Desert coast. The Bushmen of the Namibian interior called the region "The Land God Made in Anger", while Portuguese sailors once referred to it as "The Gates of Hell". The coast is named for the bleached whale and seal bones which covered the shore when the whaling industry was still active, as well as the skeletal shipwrecks caused by rocks offshore in the fog. More than a thousand vessels of various
sizes and areas litter the coast. Namibia has declared the 16,000 km² (6,200 mi²) Skeleton Coast National Park over much of the area, from the Ugab River to the Kunene. The northern half of the park is a designated wilderness area. The coast has been the subject of a number of wildlife documentaries, particularly about adaptations to extreme aridity. The riverbeds further inland are home to baboons, giraffes, lions, black rhinoceros and springbok. The animals get most of their water from wells dug by the baboons or elephants. The Kaokoveld Desert occupies a coastal strip covering 45,700 square kilometers (17,600 square miles), and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Namibian savanna woodlands to the east, and the Namib Desert to the south.
Etosha National Park
Etosha was first established in 1907, when Namibia was a German colony known as South West Africa. The Etosha Pan dominates the park. The salt pan desert is roughly 130 km long and as wide as 50 km in places. The salt pan is usually dry, but fills with water briefly in the summer, when it attracts pelicans and flamingos in particular. In the dry season, winds blowing across the Etosha salt pan pick up saline dust and carry it across the country and out over the southern Atlantic. This salt enrichment provides minerals to the soil downwind of the pan on which some wildlife depends, though the salinity also creates challenges to farming. A long fence has been erected along the Etosha National Park's 850 km boundary to control the spreading of disease. The animals concentrate around the new waterholes, resulting in excessive grazing in their vicinity. Fifty waterholes have been constructed to attract animals and so improve the viewing prospect for visitors to Etosha Game Reserve. The surrounding savanna is home to a number of mammals that will visit the pan and surrounding waterholes when there is water, these include quite large numbers of zebra, Blue Wildebeest and springbok as well as white rhinoceros, elephants, hunting dogs, lions, leopards, and antelopes.
Windhoek
Windhoek is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) above sea level. The 2001 census determined Windhoek's population was 233,529. A population influx from all over Namibia has caused researchers to estimate the figure now to be well over 300,000. Windhoek is situated in a semi-arid climatic region. Days are mostly warm with very hot days during the summer months, while nights are generally cool in Windhoek City. The average annual temperature is 19 °C (67 °F), which is high for a site at such a high altitude on the edge of the tropics. The winter months of June, July and August usually experience little or no rain. Minimum temperatures range between 5 °C (41 °F) and 18 °C (64 °F). Nights are usually cool, although the temperature seldom drops below 0°C, and it almost never snows. Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport, situated 45 kilometres outside Windhoek, handles well over 400,000 passengers a year.
Damaraland
Doros crater is a differentiated igneous intrusion in the Damaraland region of Namibia to the northwest of the country’s highest peak, Brandberg. Twyfelfontein is a site of ancient rock engravings in the Kunene Region of north-western Namibia. It consists of a spring in a valley flanked by the slopes of a sandstone table mountain that receives very little rainfall and has a wide range of diurnal temperatures. The site around Twyfelfontein has been inhabited for 6,000 years, first by hunter-gatherers and later by Khoikhoi herders. Both ethnic groups used it as a place of worship and a site to conduct shamanist rituals. In the process of these rituals at least 2,500 items of rock carvings have been created, as well as a few rock paintings. Displaying one of the largest concentrations of rock petroglyphs in Africa, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein as Namibia's first World Heritage Site in 2007. The name Twyfelfontein refers to the spring itself, to the valley containing the spring, and in the context of traveling and tourism also to a greater area containing nearby tourist attractions: the rock engravings, the Organ Pipes, Burnt Mountain, Dorros crater, and the Petrified Forest. The World Heritage Site covers the area of rock engravings.
Fish River Canyon
The Fish River Canyon is located in the south of Namibia. It is the second largest canyon in the world and the largest in Africa, as well as the second most visited tourist attraction in Namibia. It features a gigantic ravine, in total about 100 miles (160 km) long, up to 27 km wide and in places almost 550 metres deep. The Fish River is the longest interior river in Namibia. It cuts deep into the plateau which is today dry, stony and sparsely covered with hardy drought-resistant plants. The river flows intermittently, usually flooding in late summer; the rest of the year it becomes a chain of long narrow pools. At the lower end of the Fish River Canyon, the hot springs resort of Ai-Ais is situated. Public view points are near Hobas, 70 km north of Ai-Ais. This part of the canyon is part of the Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. The other 90 km of this canyon are privately owned.
Sossusvlei
The Namib-Naukluft National Park is a national park of Namibia encompassing part of the Namib Desert (considered the world's oldest desert) and the Naukluft mountain range. With an overall area of 49.768 km², the Namib-Naukluft is the largest game park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. The most well-known area of the park is Sossusvlei, which is the main visitor attraction in Namibia. Sossusvlei (sometimes written Sossus Vlei) is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes, located in the southern part of the Namib Desert, in the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia.
The name "Sossusvlei" is often used in an extended meaning to refer to the surrounding area (including other neighbouring vleis such as Dead Vlei and other high dunes), which is one of the major visitor attractions of Namibia. Access to the Sossusvlei area of the Namib-Naukluft National Park is from the Sesriem gate, which is located in the surroundings of the eponymous canyon. From Sesriem, a 60km concrete road leads to Sossusvlei proper. The last 6 km can only be traversed with 4WD vehicles as the concrete road ends and sand begins (the place where the concrete road ends is known as "2x4 parking" as any non-4WD vehicle must stop there). As a consequence of its fascinating and surrealistic landscapes, Sossusvlei is one the most photographed places in Subsaharan Africa.
Swakopmund
Swakopmund is a city on the coast of north-western Namibia, 280 km (175 miles) west of Windhoek, Namibia's capital. As a seaside resort, the weather is cooler here in December to January (Namibia's summer months) so the territorial administration moves to Swakopmund for these months. The town has 42,000 inhabitants. Swakopmund is a beach resort and an example of German colonial architecture. It was founded in 1892 as the main harbour for German South-West Africa, and a sizable part of its population is still Germanspeaking today. Attractions in Swakopmund include a Swakopmund Museum, the National Marine Aquarium, a crystal gallery and spectacular sand dunes near Langstrand south of the Swakop River. Outside of the city, the Rossmund Desert Golf Course is one of only 5 allgrass desert golf courses in the world. Swakopmund is also known for extreme sports. Nearby lies a camel farm and the Martin Luther steam locomotive, dating from 1896 and abandoned in the desert. The average temperature ranges between 15°C (59°F) to 25°C (77°F) in Swakopmund. Rainfall is less than 20 mm per year, making gutters and drainpipes on buildings a rarity. The cold Benguela current supplies moisture for the area in the form of fog that can reach as deep as 140 km (87 mi) inland. Walvis Bayis located 30 kms south of Swakopmund and most visitors to Swakopmund also go to Walvis Bay - either for marine activities, to get to Sandwich Harbour, or if driving to or from Sossusvlei.
Caprivi
The Caprivi is a tropical area, with high temperatures and much rainfall during the December-to-March rainy season, making it the wettest region of Namibia. The terrain is mostly made up of swamps, floodplains, wetlands and woodland. In addition to the Zambezi River, the strip also holds the Cuando and Kwando River, which marks the border with Botswana. Tributaries of the river here go by different names, including the Linyata and the Chobe. The region is home to 450 animal species, including elephants, making Caprivi a popular game-watching spot. The wildlife is protected by several nature reserves, such as Bwabwata, Mudumu, Lizauli, West Caprivi Game Park, Mahango Game Reserve, and Mamili National Park; animals travel freely across the unmarked border with Botswana, where the Chobe National Park lies. The strip is also a prime bird-watching area, with almost 70 percent of bird species found in Namibia being recorded here. Katima Mulilo is the largest town.
Other Areas
Gobabis is a town in eastern Namibia. Gobabis is situated 200 km (124 miles) down the B6 motorway from Windhoek to Botswana. The town is 110 km (68 miles) from the Buitepos border post with Botswana, and serves as an important link to South Africa on the tarred Trans-Kalahari Highway. Keetmanshoop is a town in southern Namibia, lying on the Trans-Namib Railway from Windhoek to Upington in South Africa. The town is situated near two quiver tree forests, one of them being a national monument and a major tourist attraction of Namibia.
I LOVE NAMIBIA - wide open spaces, few tourists, awesome scenery, star-filled skies - awesome!!