As you may know by now, we kick off every month with a blog featuring an experience from our current brochure “Experience“. This month, almost a year on from the release of the brochure, we’re introducing The Flight of the Schoemans in Namibia. It’s an extraordinary experience, enjoyed by Angela Sacha a few years ago, and which gives the traveller an aerial view of some of the most amazing regions and sights of Namibia, such as the Skeleton Coast, sand dunes and seal colonies. The journey consists of a series of short flights and stopovers in some of the most remote camps in the country, which are run by the Schoeman brothers, after which this experience is named. Each of their camps is built with a low-eco footprint. Angela reported that the experience was one of her most unique and exhilarating adventures and not for the faint-hearted.
A couple of months ago, Hannah Rayner and Jamie Cross took a similar route, only this time overland, on a predominantly self-driven trip. Their journey started in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, heading around the country in a clockwise manner with stopovers in Sossusvlei, NamibRand Reserve, Swakopmund, Damaraland and Etosha, and this week, over a lovely coffee in the sun, they told me about their adventures.
‘We haven’t actually done many self-drive trips before this one, but the demand for this type of journey is rapidly increasing, so it was great for us to experience it first-hand.’
‘There’s something cool about driving in the desert and there’s not many cars on the road, so it is a kind of driver’s paradise’.
The two recounted that it was fairly easy to navigate around the roads, however they did end up humbly admitting that they may have briefly gotten lost as they took a wrong turning and in Namibia, if you take a wrong turning, you could end up taking an unintended 7-hour detour – luckily, this wasn’t one of those occasions. Overall, the two couldn’t find any better words to describe Namibia than ‘a place of awe-inspiring vistas and history’.
After hearing about both Angela and Jamie and Hannah’s adventures in Namibia, both very different, I am amazed by the variety of experiences this large but low-populated country has to offer. Namibia doesn’t only have incredible landscapes and scenery, but also a rich and riveting history. The desert is deceiving. It’s not nearly as empty as you might at first think, inhabited by animals and people who have adapted to environments that you or I would consider extreme. There’s a vast number of historical sites to visit, such as shipwrecks, ancient rock engravings and salt and clay pans. It sounds utterly amazing.
It seems apt, therefore, to end this blog on a quote by Bruce Wallin, taken from our brochure: ‘The main luxury item that Namibia offers is space. It makes the travellers feel completely off-grid, giving a sense of total solitude’.
The Journeys by Design team would highly recommend a trip to Namibia and would love to answer any questions you have. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
