Namibia

When to Go

May to June — the dry season opens. The rains have finished, the air is clear and the landscape still carries some green. Days run to the mid-twenties and nights are genuinely cold — the desert can touch freezing before dawn, and a client on a 5am balloon flight needs a proper jacket, which they will not have packed. Game is beginning to gather at the Etosha waterholes but has not concentrated yet.

July to August — peak season, and the cold. The busiest and most expensive months, and the driest air of the year. Mornings are cold enough for gloves in open vehicles and the middle of the day is pleasant. Etosha viewing is very good, the dunes photograph at their cleanest, and every good bed in the country is spoken for well in advance.

September to October — the best game viewing of the year. By September the last standing water is gone and Etosha is at its most productive, with heavy traffic at the waterholes through the day and rhino at the floodlit pools most nights. October is the hottest month before the rains, reaching the high thirties in the north and higher in the south, which is the trade — the finest viewing conditions arrive with real heat. Crowds thin slightly after the northern-hemisphere summer holidays.

November to December — the build-up. Hot, with cloud stacking up and the first thunderstorms usually arriving in November. Game begins to disperse from the Etosha waterholes as ephemeral pans fill, but the light becomes dramatic and the desert is often at its most photogenic under a broken sky.

January to April — green season, and an underrated April. Most of the rain falls between January and March, and it is unevenly distributed: the north can take 350 millimetres or more while the coastal desert receives under 50. Storms are usually afternoon events rather than all-day rain, but gravel roads wash out, some remote camps close and malaria risk in the north is at its annual peak. The payoff is empty parks, low rates, newborn antelope, migrant birds and the rare years when the Tsauchab reaches Sossusvlei and the pan holds water beneath the dunes. April is the pick of these months — the rain has stopped, the country is still green, the air is washed clean and the rates have not moved yet.

The one-month answer. If a client asks for one month, give them September. Etosha is at its peak, the heat has not yet reached October levels, the desert nights are no longer freezing and rain risk is nil. May is the value alternative for clients weighted towards landscape rather than game.