Must See

Windhoek

The attractive capital of Namibia is home to some impressive German colonial architecture, including the Christuskirche (the city's landmark church), the Tintenpalast parliament building and the Alte Feste, which houses a museum of Namibian history.

Damaraland

This extremely arid region in the north-central part of Namibia has much to see: the Aba-Huab Petrified Forest, whose trunks turned to stone over 200 million years ago; Vingerklip, a pale, 35-metre-high monolith that dominates the skyline, and Twyfelfontein, home to an abundance of ancient rock engravings and paintings, of which the White Lady of the Brandberg is the best known.

A short drive from Grootfontein, travellers can marvel at the Hoba meteorite, one of the largest ever discovered. Mainly iron and weighing 50 tons, it is thought to have hit earth some 80,000 years ago.

Etosha National Park

Etosha Pan is a huge, salty hollow formed 1,000 million years ago, and now home to one of Africa's best wildlife sanctuaries. It is surrounded by over 22,000 sq km of bush and grasslands, where visitors can see lions, elephants, zebras, wildebeest, hyenas, antelopes and giraffes.

Fish River Canyon

Fish River Canyon is a huge, dramatic cleft in the dry landscape and the world's second largest canyon after the Grand Canyon. Unseen until almost on top of it, it has a vertical drop from the plateau for half a kilometre.

Nearby, the Kokerboom Forest can be found; home of the elegant kokerbooms (quiver trees), so-called as they were used by the San people to make quivers for their arrows. These giant aloes are now a protected plant in Namibia.

Namib Desert

The Namib Desert, believed to be the oldest desert in the world, is extremely impressive. Visitors can stay at Swakopmund for trips into Sossusvlei, a remarkable area within the Namib Naukluft National Park where the amazing Sossusvlei sand dunes stretch as far as the eye can see - some of them standing at over 1,000 feet.

Further down the coast, take a trip to see the multitude of sea lions at Walvis Bay. However, visitors staying at the nearby Luderitz campsite on Shark Island should bear in mind that this was once a concentration camp, holding the Nama and Herero people in 1904-1908. From Luderitz, visit the ghost town of Kolmanskop, once a diamond mining centre, now mostly buried under dunes.