Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is an ethereal mix of vast plains and dry riverbeds, haunting shipwrecks and Victorian ghost towns, enigmatic desert elephants and endangered black rhinos. A very remote part of Damaraland in northern Namibia, the Skeleton Coast is a natural curiosity shop for adventurous travellers: nowhere else can you can see preternatural welwitschias – at 2 000 years, the oldest living desert plants in the world – or follow in the ancient tracks of Strandlopers, the original beachcombing hunter-gatherer residents. The semi-nomadic Himba people still live in the region, and use thousands of years of accumulated wisdom to survive the sometimes forbidding terrain.

Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp is a 7-tent establishment in a rugged valley that is home to a surprising diversity of plant and animal life. Fogs off the Atlantic Ocean, formed when the icy Benguela Current meets the sun-baked desert air, ensure precious moisture that keeps this pre-historic environment alive. The transient Hoanib River supports a ribbon of vegetation that is the major source of food for desert-dwelling creatures, including giraffe, cheetah and springbok. Birders will be thrilled to spot a lanner falcon perched majestically in an isolated sheperd’s tree.

Enjoy presentations and interaction with wildlife researchers when they are present at the camp. Learn about important and fascinating conservation programs like the vital research on the unique desert-adapted lion.

While 4x4ing through the Skeleton Coast National Park, enjoy a picnic lunch on the dunes, watch the comical antics of throngs of grunting Cape fur seals on the beach or scan the mesmerizingly stark landscape for the iconic, sword-like horns of a lone oryx standing sentry in the sand.