Desert Homestead

home to the famous giant orange dunes

Desert Homestead is located in the Sossusvlei area of southwest Namibia.

The property was one of the first to be built in the area back in 2001 and is set in a pleasant roadside position in sweeping desert landscapes around 20 km southwest of the entrance into the Namib-Naukluft park at Sesriem.

The central building is styled a little like a traditional colonial farmstead, with broad verandahs and containing a lounge, bar and offering restaurant style dining at separate tables. Just beyond is a very nice swimming pool.

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Desert Homestead is in 22 pleasant stone and thatched chalets, ranging in rather military style either side of the main building, reasonably simple. They are comfortable enough, with air-conditioning which is most welcome in the Oct-Mar summer.

Activities

Desert Homestead provides access to the following guided activities, not all of which are necessarily included in the usual room rate …

• Visits to Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei
• Walking trails
• Balloon safari
• Quad-biking

Sossusvlei is a very popular location and tends to feature in a very high proportion of first time visits to Namibia.

The usual stay duration is 2-4 nights.

Seasonality

The climate in Sossusvlei is relatively stable and the area can be visited year round, although the most popular period is the long Apr-Dec dry season.

Getting there

There are three main ways to get around Namibia and visit Sossusvlei …

Self-drive

The first option is to self-drive, which is reasonably safe and easy to do. The upside is that it is by far the lowest cost way to get around. The downside is that, for safety reasons, you are obliged to stick to a relatively limited network of main roads locations.

Around 90% of the visitors to the Sossusvlei area arrive by self-drive, so the whole area is designed to cater for this kind of traffic.

Flying safari

The second option is to travel around by light aircraft. This is both a great deal easier and enables you to access some wonderfully remote locations. The downside is that it’s much more expensive, as much as three times the price of self-drive.

Less than 10% of guests into Sossusvlei arrive by light aircraft, almost all of whom stay on the upmarket Kulala Concession, which has an airstrip and is able to offer all the various guided activities and other services.

Guided overland expedition

The third option is guided overland expedition, which enables you to really explore the truly wild and wonderful parts of the country. The downsides are that this can be quite an arduous way to travel and can become quite costly.

Sossusvlei is virtually never included in this kind of trip, the overland guides prefer to head out to more remote areas, where they can be free to conduct their safari as they please.

Combinations

Many of the very best trips to Namibia combine two or three of these ways of travelling around.

a very popular stop in first time visits to Namibia