Kulala Desert Lodge

home to the famous giant orange dunes

Kulala Desert Lodge is located in the Sossusvlei area of southwest Namibia.

Set on a private reserve, this is a comfortable permanent lodge, set on a ridge above a broad open valley across from the main dunes.

The central building is stone under thatch, with broad glazing on the western facade to take best advantage of the views. Out front there are broad terraces and to one side there is a decent swimming pool surrounded by low adobe walls.

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Kulala Desert Lodge is in 23 comfortable suites, known as ‘kulalas’, which are primarily constructed of timber and canvas, but with substantial stone bathrooms, above which is an upper deck on which guests have the option to sleep under the stars.

Two of the rooms form a family suite, with a shared bathroom, suitable for families with small children.

A further four rooms are arranged in pairs with a shared deck, suitable for families with older children but sometimes used for separate guests.

Activities

Kulala Desert Lodge 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