VAST
Namibia isn’t about novelty or ticking off remote places for the sake of it. It’s about space—real space—and what happens when you move through it without distraction. Distances stretch. Noise drops away. The land asks more of you than most places, and that’s exactly the point.
RAID + Onguza gravel journey through Namibia’s northern frontier represents the sharp end of a decade spent exploring, refining, and guiding in some of the most isolated terrain on the planet. This is travel that rewards attention and patience, not spectacle.
Namibia overwhelms the senses in quieter ways: vast desert plains, jagged mountains shifting from purple to blue, wildlife encountered one moment at a time. Here, watching a single elephant cross the land can feel more powerful than seeing a herd. A sea of sand can hold your attention longer than any landmark. It’s a place where quality outweighs quantity, where color feels unreal, and where the scale of the landscape recalibrates everything.
This isn’t travel to consume a place. It’s travel that asks you to slow down, look harder, and let the land set the terms.
D1 ARRIVAL WINDHOEK
Before the gravel begins, we recommend starting in Cape Town—the ideal soft landing before heading north. Spend a few days settling into the rhythm of southern Africa: mountain air, long light, good food, and unhurried days. When you cross into Namibia, you arrive rested, present, and ready—not rushed.
In Windhoek, you’ll be welcomed and transferred to The Weinberg Hotel, your first base in Namibia. Settle in, prepare your bike if you like, and pick up your RAID welcome bag—thoughtfully assembled essentials designed for desert riding. It’s a quiet signal that the journey has begun.
The rest of the day is yours. Explore Windhoek’s mix of modern city and frontier history, sample local flavors, or simply take it slow. As evening falls, watch your first Namibian sunset from the Weinberg’s Sky Lounge, glass in hand, looking out across the valley. We may organize a short spin with a local pro.
Dinner is easy and close by, followed by a good night’s sleep. Tonight is about arrival. Tomorrow, the landscape opens—and the expedition truly begins.
Welcome to Namibia.
D2 WINDHOEK - TSAUCHAB
Touring 58.7mi / 95km ✧ +915ft / 279m
Passhunter 69.8mi / 112km ✧ +1,462ft / 446m
We leave before dawn, heading south into the Hardap Region. After a couple of hours on the road, the world simplifies. Fewer signs. Less signal. More space. This is the edge of the Kalahari Craton, where ancient rock lies open and the land shows its age without apology.
Klein Aub appears like a quiet echo of industry — once a copper town, now mostly still. What remains is Conny’s Coffee Shop: solar-powered, weathered, improbably alive. We stop to stage the ride, drink coffee, check bolts, and take a final pause before the desert takes over.
From here, it’s 94 kilometers of gravel. Corrugation and sand stretch between the Naukluft Mountains to the north and the flat-cut Zaris to the south. The space between them is wide and quiet. Conversation fades. Effort takes over.
Late in the day we follow the dry line of the Tsauchab River toward Tsauchab River Camp, a former farm turned remote refuge on the edge of Sossusvlei—and home to Johan and Nicky Steyn. Fig trees hint at water. Wildlife keeps its distance. There’s no signal, no towns, no noise beyond wind and wheels. We arrive as the light drops. The land settles. So do we.
D3 TSAUCHAB - KULALA DESERT LODGE
Touring 43mi / 69km ✧ +511ft / 172m
Passhunter 65mi / 105km ✧ +1,030ft / 314m
We wake with the sun and ride the ghost of a river.
The Tsauchab once ran from the Naukluft Mountains to the Atlantic, strong enough to carve stone. Then the desert shifted. Around 60,000 years ago, dunes sealed its path, stranding the river at Sossusvlei. Now it flows only after rare rains, yet still anchors desert life—long before roads, long before silence drew people here.
We roll out on a private road—soft gravel, eyes up. At 25 km the route splits: Touring cuts straight across a 7,000-hectare ranch for an early finish; Passhunter stays north on the C19—longer, windier, open gravel—touching Sesriem before turning south.
Both lines meet at Wilderness Kulala Desert Lodge on the edge of Sossusvlei—gateway to the Namib Sand Sea. Remote, intentional, deeply quiet. A place to reset before what follows.
Wilderness Kulala Desert Lodge
Set on a private reserve at the edge of Sossusvlei, Wilderness Kulala Desert Lodge offers rare access to the Namib Sand Sea—quiet, uncrowded, and focused on the desert itself rather than big-game spectacle. Exclusive desert singletrack, understated tented rooms, and nights under some of the darkest skies on Earth make this a place to slow down and read the land.
O/N Wilderness Kulala Desert Lodge
D4 - SOSSUSVLEI
27mi / 44km ✧ +423ft / 129m
+2.5-3hrs of desert-Sand Hiking
A Day of Sand — Sossusvlei
We’re up before the sun. Coffee. A light bite. Then we roll—bikes moving quietly along a private desert line, slipping into Sossusvlei National Park as the dunes catch first light. A hard ribbon of pavement pulls us deep into the Namib, the oldest desert on Earth. The sand walls rise. The world narrows. Everything unnecessary falls away.
At road’s end, the riding stops. Cold towels. Cold drinks. Shoes off, boots on. The pace changes.
We climb Big Daddy—slow, deliberate steps into ancient sand. Every foot sinks. Every breath is earned. From the summit: dunes to the horizon. Wind. Light. Space. Then the drop—running, sliding, letting gravity take over—straight into Deadvlei. White clay. Black trees. Time standing still.
Lunch is simple. Shade, water, quiet. After, we move again—rolling through the park to Sesriem Canyon, walking the cut carved by the Tsauchab, watching for life where it hides. By late afternoon, the desert loosens its grip. We return to the lodge. Sand washes off. The day settles. Another night in the desert—stars overhead, nothing left to interrupt the quiet.
D5 - OKONJIMA NATURE RESERVE
Afternoon: Rhino tracking by bike and reserve trail ride
This morning we leave the sand behind and take to the air. Sossusvlei falls away beneath us—not just to save time, but because Namibia makes sense from above. A chartered Cessna threads its way across the country, climbing to 1,700 meters before touching down near the Omboroko Mountains, where Etjo sandstone breaks through the surface.
At Okonjima Nature Reserve, we arrive, reset, and prepare for something rare. Through Donna Hanssen, co-owner of the lodge, we learn a quiet human thread that explains why access here matters. As a child, ill and far from home, Donna was cared for by a local nurse who brought comfort and books she had written. That nurse was Patricia Craven—one of Namibia’s most respected botanists, and Dan Craven’s mother. It’s a small story, but it matters. Some places open with permits. Others open through people.
That trust led further. Luigi Bassi—shareholder in Okonjima, husband to Rosalea Hanssen, and a cyclist himself—rides this reserve regularly. In conversation with Dan, an idea surfaced: What if we tracked rhino by bike? It had never been done. Which made it exactly right. This afternoon, it becomes real—no staging, no spectacle. Just bikes, wild land, and access earned the long way.
Okonjima today is a working conservation landscape offering unique, customized safari experiences. Leopard and rhino anchor the reserve, alongside brown hyena, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, eland, and a wide mix of antelope. Some species were reintroduced. Others never left. For our group, the experience is fully private—dedicated guides, our own vehicles, and a tailored itinerary throughout—keeping encounters calm, unhurried, and honest.
We’ll spend two nights here, settling into a landscape that didn’t erase its past, but learned from it.
O/N Okonjima Nature Reserve & Lodge
Download the comprehensive history of the Okinjima Reserve and Hansen Family found HERE.
D6 - OKONJIMA NATURE RESERVE
On Safari
Today we leave the bikes behind and step fully into safari at Okonjima Nature Reserve—22,000 hectares of private land where conservation isn’t branding, it’s daily practice. Family-run and research-driven, Okonjima is home to the AfriCat Foundation and operates on patience, knowledge, and trust earned over decades.
We roll out early in Land Cruisers with private guides. Morning belongs to predators—leopard, especially. Some are monitored for research, others move entirely wild, but the approach is the same: read the land, read the tracks, wait things out. This isn’t a drive-and-hope safari. It’s informed, deliberate, and deeply grounded. Along the way: rhino, giraffe, zebra, oryx, kudu, springbok, jackal and dik-dik.
By midday, we return to the lodge. Shade. A swim. Good food. Cold drinks. The kind of quiet comfort that only makes the morning feel sharper by contrast.
As the light softens, we head back out. Evening brings movement—brown hyena begin to stir, birds settle, the land exhales. If conditions align, we may stop in for a lion feeding, offering rare insight into the reserve’s rehabilitation work. After dark, the experience can go deeper. Pangolin tracking is rare, unscripted, and never guaranteed—but when the opportunity opens, we move carefully, guided by researchers, radios low, eyes adjusting to the night.
This is safari without choreography.
Private, unhurried, and deeply real.
Less about collecting sightings—more about spending time inside a place that reveals itself slowly.
D7 OKONJIMA - TimBila NATURE RESERVE
Touring 73mi / 112km ✧ +565ft / 450m
Passhunter 83mi / 133km ✧ +1,930ft / 586m
We leave Okonjima by bike and head south into Namibia’s working interior. The land opens fast—thornveld thins, gravel stretches, sandstone rises and falls. The noise drops away. Midday, we step off the bikes and back in time: dinosaur tracks pressed into exposed rock, nearly 200 million years old, a reminder that this dry country once held water and weight. From there, the road pulls us deeper into ranchland shaped by rivers that now run only after rain, still quietly defining everything.
By afternoon we roll in along a dry riverbed and arrive without ceremony. TimBila Camp sits open and unfenced on the Omaruru—solar-powered, low-impact, and alive with movement. Giraffe, zebra, oryx, kudu pass through as they please. The lapa becomes home: fire, cold beer, wood-fired pizza as the light softens. At dusk we climb to a high deck above the waterholes and wait—no rush, no noise—watching the desert decide who comes next.
✧
Optional Upgrade: TimBila Lodge
For those who lean toward the highest expression of comfort and setting, TimBila Lodge offers a rare opportunity for an upgrade.
Perched dramatically along a rocky escarpment, the lodge’s cliffside luxury tent suites open outward to sweeping desert views—riverbeds below, endless sky ahead. The design is bold but restrained: expansive decks, deep soaking tubs, fine linens, curated interiors, and floor-to-ceiling openings that dissolve the line between indoors and the wild beyond. This is canvas reimagined as architecture.
Service here is discreet and intuitive. Meals are elevated and beautifully paced. Afternoons stretch long—spent poolside, on a private terrace, or watching the light slide across the land. Wildlife moves through the valley below, unbothered and unannounced. At night, the stars arrive in full force, and the quiet feels complete.
This upgrade is for guests who value space, stillness, and refinement, and who want their time in the desert wrapped in comfort without losing its edge. Same land. Same wildness. A different level of intimacy.
Deeply considered.
For those who want the desert—finished beautifully.
O/N TimBila Lodge
D8 TimBila - oMURURU - AI-AIBA
Touring 38mi / 61.2km ✧ +869ft / 265m
Passhunter 69 mi /111km ✧ +2,150ft / 655m
We ride south through the Omaruru River corridor on a remote gravel line that cuts straight into the working interior of Namibia. The landscape is dry, open, and uncompromising. This road leads directly into Omaruru and the heart of Onguza.
Omaruru exists because of water. Long before it was a town, this was a seasonal river crossing used by Herero and Damara communities moving cattle and trading goods. Missionaries, traders, and later German settlers followed for the same reason. Today it’s a functional Namibian town, shaped by the Omaruru River and the granite formations of the Damara Belt—some of the oldest exposed rock on Earth—which define both the terrain and the riding.
On the outskirts of town, we enter Dan’s family farm. This is home ground. The riding shifts to rough farm tracks and hand-cut singletrack, traced by cattle, bikes, and years of use. From there we roll into the Onguza workshop, where the frames are built by hand. We meet the builders, share lunch, and see the process up close—steel, heat, patience, and no shortcuts. From here, some riders transfer on to Ai Aiba Lodge. The Passhunter group heads back out with Dan for one more loop on his hardest local road—a direct, unforgiving finish that fits the place.
This isn’t a highlight reel.
It’s a day inside someone’s landscape.
And you feel it.
D9 AI-AIBA - THE ROCK PAINTING LODGE
On Foot, On Bike, Through History
We spend a full day at Ai-Aiba, set deep in the Erongo Mountains where granite stacks itself into improbable forms and history sits right on the surface. This isn’t just a lodge—it’s a living archive. Scattered across the land are more than 200 San (Bushman) rock art sites, etched into caves, overhangs, and open stone, preserved by time and isolation.
Walking With the San
Here, members of the San community walk with us—people whose ancestors created the art you’re standing in front of, whose language still carries the unmistakable click sounds shaped by this land. This isn’t a guided walk in the usual sense. It’s shared movement, following the same paths their people used for generations.
You learn how they read the landscape—animals, water, weather, survival. The paintings shift from images to instruction. Stories are passed on foot, in place, with the quiet authority of lived knowledge. You’re not observing history. You’re walking inside it.
Riding the Erongo Mountains
Ai-Aiba offers some of Namibia’s most surprising cycling—flowing trails across ancient granite that suit both gravel bikes and e-bikes. Purpose-built routes wind through corridors, plains, and rocky outcrops, emphasizing rhythm and immersion over technical difficulty. Guided options add local insight, with wildlife—gemsbok, giraffe, kudu, baboons, and the occasional leopard—moving quietly through the background.
The Lodge
The Ai-Aiba lodge nearly disappears into the terrain. Curved thatched roofs sit among massive boulders, granite hues mirroring the land. Chalets are calm and generous—private patios, big windows, deep bathrooms—designed to pull the outside in.
Meals unfold under open skies beside a palm-fringed pool. Evenings gather naturally around the firepit as the Erongo glows red, then fades into deep blues and mauves. At night, subtle lighting traces the rock without breaking the silence.
D10 AI-AIBA - GOANIKONTES OASIS
Touring 38mi / 61.2km ✧ +869ft / 265m
Passhunter 80.9 mi /130km ✧ +2,328ft / 710m
This morning brings options. The Passhunter route leaves early from the lodge, supported by SAG, cutting across rough savannah and along the Erongo Mountains for those looking for a harder day.
The Erongos are the eroded core of an ancient volcanic system, over 130 million years old, and the source of Namibia’s renowned crystals—aquamarine, tourmaline, fluorite, and beryl—mined here by small, family-run operations rather than industry.
The first leg of the Passhunter finishes at Uiba Oas Crystals Market near Usakos, a community-run roadside stop where local miners sell stones found in the surrounding hills. Uiba-Oas means “seeking a livelihood,” and the market offers a direct, honest connection to the land and people of the Erongo region.
The touring route departs after a sunrise hike. We load into the vehicles for a 90-minute transfer to our staging point at Trekkopje, with the Spitzkoppe mountains hovering on the horizon. From there, we ride into a landscape shaped by consequence—skirting the Husab Mine before dropping into the dry Swakop River. Roads fade. The riding turns instinctive: sand, stone, wind, animal tracks. Ostrich move through the corridor. Granite walls rise and fall. Then, unexpectedly, green appears Goanikontes Oasis arrives quietly—palms, grass, water held just beneath the surface.
We finish the day at Livingstone Lodge beside the Moon Landscape, where pale stone and sculpted ridgelines stretch into silence. Sundowners, a Namib braai over open fire, and a night sky untouched by light pollution. The day doesn’t end in a moment—it resolves, slowly, exactly as it should.
D11 GOANIKONTES - SWAKOPMUND
Touring 30mi / 48.8km ✧ +1,221ft / 372m
Passhunter xx mi /xx0km ✧ +xxft / xxm
The final ride begins by climbing out of the oasis—and straight into the Moon.
Leaving the green ribbon of Goanikontes, the land lifts and strips bare. The Moon Landscape offers no clear corridor—just contour, instinct, and terrain logic. Pale ridges rise and fall. Gullies cut hard. Rock fractured by wind and rare floods over deep time.
This is Namibia at its most exposed: chalk, ash, silver stone, geology laid open with nothing to soften scale or distance. Hills deceive. Sound drops away. The land doesn’t hurry you—and it doesn’t help.
The riding is simple and absorbing. Hardpack, scattered stone, momentum that builds and fades. Lines are read, not prescribed. Freedom comes from moving through the landscape on its terms.
Then, slowly, the desert begins to loosen its grip.
The ground flattens. The air cools. The horizon opens and pulls west. Subtle at first, then unmistakable—the Atlantic makes its presence known. Salt replaces dust. Light sharpens. After days deep inland, the sea feels almost improbable.
We roll into Swakopmund in the late afternoon, arriving precisely where the Namib Desert meets the ocean. Our destination is the Strand Hotel, set directly on the The Tug—a front-row seat to the Atlantic and a vivid contrast to the raw interior we’ve just crossed. Modern, comfortable, and perfectly placed, it’s an ideal landing after the final miles.
The evening stays simple: time on the beach, or a walk through Swakopmund’s layered past. Either way, the night comes together at The Tug, set above the waves on the old jetty—fresh seafood, salt air, the Atlantic moving beneath your feet. The day ends not with effort, but with reward.v
From oasis to Moon.
From desert to sea.
A final line drawn cleanly across Namibia.
O/N The Strand Hotel
D12 SWAKOPMUND - WALVIS BAY
Departure Day — From Desert to Departure
Today is a quiet close. No alarms. No routes to load. Just time.
Most flights depart late morning to early afternoon from Walvis Bay, routing through Cape Town and onward to wherever home happens to be. But before we take to the air, Swakopmund gives us one last, gentle invitation to linger.
Walk the beach. Let the Atlantic do what it does best—wake you up properly. If you’re inclined, slip into the water for a quick, bracing dip. Cold, honest, unforgettable. Then wander up to Two Beards Coffee Roastery, feet still sandy, for one last great cup—salt in the air, boards creaking, conversations slow.
From there, drift inland through the compact streets around Tobias Hainyeko Street and the surrounding blocks. This is Swakopmund at its most human: small bookstores, quiet galleries, curio shops, and local boutiques tucked together in a way that rewards curiosity rather than urgency. Art, words, handmade things. Nothing flashy. Everything with a story. It’s a town built for wandering, not checking boxes.
And then, eventually, it’s time.
We leave with dust still on the legs, salt on the skin, and a sense that something has shifted—subtly, permanently. Namibia has a way of doing that. It doesn’t announce itself. It just rearranges you while you’re paying attention to something else.
From desert to ocean. From movement to stillness. From effort to reflection.
Thank you for riding it the long way.