Etosha National Park Safari Guide
Namibia's premier wildlife park centred on a vast salt pan — renowned for its floodlit waterhole game viewing and excellent Big Five encounters.
Top Highlights
Best Time to Visit Etosha National Park
May to October for dry season when animals congregate at waterholes. August to October is peak season with massive concentrations. The pan fills with water from December to April, attracting flamingos. June-July are cold but excellent for game.
Etosha National Park Safari Budget Guide
Park fees $8/adult/day (Namibia is very affordable). NWR rest camps from $50-200/night for chalets, $15-30/night camping. Luxury lodges outside the park $300-1,500/night. Self-drive is the norm — 4x4 helpful but not essential on main tourist roads.
Getting to Etosha National Park
4-5 hours from Windhoek to the southern (Anderson/Von Lindequist) gate. The park has three main rest camps: Okaukuejo (west), Halali (central), Namutoni (east). Internal roads are gravel but well-maintained.
Etosha National Park is built around one of Africa's most striking natural features — the Etosha Pan, a vast silvery-white salt flat so large it's visible from space. Surrounding this ghostly expanse is a ring of savanna, mopane woodland, and dolomite springs that support an extraordinary concentration of wildlife.
Etosha's unique selling point is its waterhole game viewing. The main rest camps — Okaukuejo, Halali, and Namutoni — each sit beside floodlit waterholes where visitors can watch wildlife come to drink throughout the night. Sitting in the darkness as a parade of elephants, rhinos, lions, and hyenas materialise from the blackness is one of Africa's most magical wildlife experiences.
By day, Etosha delivers excellent self-drive safari with well-signed gravel roads connecting dozens of waterholes. The park protects both black and white rhinoceros in good numbers, along with lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, zebra, springbok, gemsbok, and the endemic black-faced impala found nowhere else in the world.
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