Etosha National Park safaris, tours & holiday packages

More on Etosha National Park holidays

Etosha's busiest waterholes are frequently attended by lively mixed herds of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, springbok, oryx, kudu and other wildlife. Elephants, lions and black rhinos are all conspicuous and quite likely to be seen during a visit lasting a few days. Leopards are somewhat more skittish, and Etosha is probably the only major African safari destination where buffalo are entirely absent.

A local specialty is the endangered black-faced impala, a distinctive subspecies confined to the western Angola/Namibia border area. About 300 individuals were translocated here in the 1970s and their descendants now form half of the global population of 1,000. Etosha Pan started life thousands of years ago as a perennial lake, but it now remains dry for most of the year. As a result, only one fish species has ever been recorded. During the rainy season, the pan can become partially flooded, luring up to one million flamingos to breed and feed there.

In all, 340 bird species have been identified in the park, including crimson-breasted shrike, (the national bird of Namibia), 35 raptors and 12 types of a lark. An exceptional all-around safari destination, Etosha is unusually well suited to self-drive exploration, thanks to the high standard of the internal roads and affordability of its public rest camps. Okaukuejo, the park’s oldest rest camp boasts a wonderful floodlit waterhole that can offer exceptional sightings at night, when you may be lucky enough to see a black rhino approach to almost within touching distance. Namutoni and Halali Camps also have worthwhile floodlit waterholes.