I have never been anywhere in the world quite like Namibia – or the Namib Desert. The Namib Desert between Sossusvlei and the coast is 200kms wide (125 miles), and actually stretches north / south about 2,000kms (1,250 miles) covering parts of South Africa, Namibia and Angola. Much of the desert is this super vibrant red sand due to the minerals and elements in the sand, which makes for quite interesting color contrasts. We stayed at the Kulala Lodge where they offer various activities – including a guided hike up a few of the sand dunes.

One of the very best experiences we had was to climb the Big Daddy Dune. The dune itself is approximately 325 meters tall (even though we were told during our climb that it was 400 meters tall), and it took us about 2 hours to climb up, and we went straight down the face of the dune into Deadvlei, taking approximately 10 minutes.  We left the lodge around 7 AM and started climbing the dune by around 8 AM.  We were at the top by 10 AM, and couldn’t be happier – I estimate it was already over 35C / 100F by 10 AM.

Sony A7R II | FE 70-200mm F4 | 104 mm | f/20 | 1/1000th | ISO4000

A little something that I would have never known – it’s easier to walk over sand where someone else has already walked before.  Our guide was smart enough to let us take our time getting to the dune so that a few other groups went before us.  If you walk on someone else’s footprints, the sand is actually a bit more solid and it takes less effort to walk.  Pro tip.