Namibia · Southern Africa
Etosha.
Etosha is Namibia's principal game park, built around a salt pan so large it is visible from space.
Photo Ria Truter / Unsplash
Game viewing here works differently from most of Africa: in the dry season animals come to a limited number of waterholes and the visitor waits rather than searches. Several camps have floodlit waterholes, which makes for game viewing after dark without a night drive.
It is excellent for black rhino, elephant and large plains-game concentrations, and the contrast with the desert to the south is the reason the two are almost always combined.
How do you get to Etosha National Park?
Most visitors drive from Windhoek, which takes around five hours to the southern entrance at Andersson Gate, on tarred road. The park has four gates: Andersson in the south, Von Lindequist in the east, Galton in the west and King Nehale in the north. Light aircraft also fly to airstrips just outside the park, which is how flying safaris include it.
How big is Etosha?
The park covers more than 22,000 square kilometres, and the pan at its centre takes up nearly a quarter of it. The name is usually translated as the great white place, after the pan's flat white surface.
Can you self-drive in Etosha?
Yes, and many visitors do. The roads inside the park are gravel and suitable for an ordinary car, visitors must stay on them and inside the vehicle, and the gates open at sunrise and close at sunset. Staying at one of the camps inside the park means being at a waterhole at first light, and the floodlit waterholes at those camps can be watched after dark.
What wildlife is Etosha known for?
Black rhino above all, along with elephant, lion, and large herds of springbok, zebra, gemsbok and wildebeest at the waterholes. Cheetah and black-backed jackal are seen on the open plains.
How long should you spend in Etosha?
Two or three nights, and many itineraries split them between the western and eastern sides of the pan, because the waterholes and the landscape change across its length. It usually follows the desert and the coast on a Namibian route.
What is there to see in Etosha?
What does Etosha pair well with?
- Sossusvlei and the NamibSossusvlei's red dunes are the image of Namibia, and Deadvlei's dead camel-thorn trees on a white clay pan are the most photographed thing in the country.
- The Skeleton Coast and DamaralandThe Skeleton Coast is where the desert meets a cold Atlantic, and Damaraland inland holds desert-adapted elephant and ancient rock art.
- Swakopmund and the coastSwakopmund is a German colonial seaside town between the desert and the Atlantic, and the base for the country's adventure activities.
- The Caprivi and the Zambezi RegionThe narrow strip in the far north-east is green, riverine and completely unlike the rest of the country.
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