Namibia · Southern Africa
The Skeleton Coast and Damaraland.
The Skeleton Coast is where the desert meets a cold Atlantic, and Damaraland inland holds desert-adapted elephant and ancient rock art.
Photo Joshua Kettle / Unsplash
This is the most atmospheric part of Namibia and the least conventional: fog, shipwrecks, seal colonies and gravel plains, with fly-in camps in concessions that are effectively private wilderness.
Twyfelfontein's rock engravings are a World Heritage Site, and the desert-adapted elephant and rhino of the Kunene are tracked rather than found.
How do you get to the Skeleton Coast?
The southern part of Skeleton Coast National Park is reached by road from Swakopmund, north along the coast past Henties Bay. The northern part is closed to independent visitors and can only be reached by light aircraft to camps in private concessions. Damaraland, inland, is a drive of several hours from Swakopmund or from Etosha.
Why is it called the Skeleton Coast?
For the whale and seal bones that once littered its beaches, and for the ships wrecked in its fog and currents. The cold Benguela current meeting the desert produces the fog that hangs over the coast, and the remains of wrecks can still be seen along the shore.
What are desert-adapted elephants?
Elephants of the Kunene and Damaraland that survive in near-desert, travelling long distances between water along dry riverbeds such as the Huab and the Hoanib. They are not a separate species; they have learned to live with very little water, and they are found by tracking with a guide.
What is Twyfelfontein?
A site in Damaraland with thousands of rock engravings made by hunter-gatherers, showing animals, human figures and animal tracks. It became Namibia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it is visited on foot with a local guide.
How long should you spend on the Skeleton Coast and in Damaraland?
Three or four nights between the two, often split between a camp in Damaraland for the elephants and the rock art and a fly-in camp on the coast. The Cape Cross seal colony, one of the largest Cape fur seal colonies in the world, is a stop on the road north from Swakopmund.
What is there to see in the Skeleton Coast and Damaraland?
What does the Skeleton Coast and Damaraland pair well with?
- EtoshaEtosha is Namibia's principal game park, built around a salt pan so large it is visible from space.
- 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.
- 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.
Planning
Elsewhere in Namibia
- 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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