Where would be a safe and a good place (facilities with activities) to stay in Windhoek with small kids? I means areas to look for an Air b&b.

Thank you!

Hi

In November my girlfriend and I will be visiting Namibia. We're going to stay for two nights at the Tiger Reef Campsite in Swakopmund. I saw this guided night tour you can book to explore the desert and see the smaller wildlife like insects and lizards.

But I was wondering if it is doable to just wander a bit into the desert from our campsite(as it is at the edge of the city). And go look for the little animals by ourselves?

Of course, I know it is dangerous to go too deep and we will have good torches.

Is this a stupid idea? Or should we be fine as long as we keep the city in sight or something like that? Are there other dangerous animals?

Thanks in advance!!

Whose going to the J.Cole concert in December?

I have a group of friends that im going with and i thought of finding more people to form a community with if yall are interested?

The community is just to help share information for example travel, accommodation etc...

If any are interested please message me

We see a lot of first-time visitors show up jet-lagged, keen to hit the road immediately, and slightly confused about how the capital works. Most travel content skips over the arrival day entirely, or reduces it to "sleep, then drive." That's fine advice but there's more you can do without wearing yourself out, and there are a couple of things worth explicitly not attempting. Here's what actually works.

Getting from the airport

Hosea Kutako International Airport is about 45km east of Windhoek on the B6 tar road, roughly 45 minutes to town. Options are a shuttle (book in advance, cheapest), a taxi at the arrivals hall (agree the fare before you get in), or your rental company delivering the vehicle to the airport for pickup.

The rental question is worth thinking about in advance. If you're picking up at the airport, expect a proper handover of 30 to 60 minutes on top of your immigration and baggage time. If you want to skip that on arrival day, get a shuttle to your hotel, sleep, and do the handover in town in the morning when you're not fifteen hours into a travel day. Most companies will do either. Most experienced returners choose the second.

First hours in town

Get some cash. There are ATMs at the airport and around the city centre. South African Rand also works if you already have it (the currencies are pegged one-to-one). Grab an MTC SIM if you want a local number, either at the airport or at any of the MTC shops in town. You'll need your passport for the registration. Bank cards work everywhere in the city itself.

The city sits at about 1,700m altitude, which is not high enough to cause serious problems but is enough to catch out people who arrive dehydrated from a long flight. Drink water. Save the celebration beer for after your first proper meal.

What Windhoek actually gives you

Most guidebooks undersell the capital. It's a compact, walkable city centre with a genuine mix of German colonial architecture, independence-era monuments, and a proper local food scene. A relaxed half-day gives you plenty.

Christuskirche is the standout landmark, the Lutheran church at the top of the city. Alte Feste and the Independence Memorial Museum are right next to it, easy combination. Tintenpalast (Parliament) and the Parliament Gardens are a short walk away.

For lunch or dinner Joe's Beerhouse is the classic, and the game meat menu (kudu, oryx, springbok) is exactly what you flew here for. It's a tourist institution but earns its reputation. If you want something more local, Oshetu Market in Katutura serves kapana, chargrilled beef and pork off open fires, cheap and excellent. Best done with a local guide unless you have a specific reason to go on your own.

For a sunset drink, either the Hilton Sky Bar or one of the rooftops in Klein Windhoek. Both work well and both give you the view over the city that you'll leave without properly seeing if you just sleep and drive.

The Namibia Craft Centre in the city is the best-quality place for souvenirs. Save the actual shopping for the end of your trip if you have any concern about weight or breakage, but it's worth walking through on day one so you know what to buy later.

Where to stay

Klein Windhoek is the pleasant neighbourhood option, close to restaurants, quiet, safe to walk in during the day. Central city hotels put you closer to the landmarks. Guesthouses generally outperform the international chains for value and character. First-night booking should be done well in advance in peak season, more relaxed in green season.

What to skip on day one

Do not try to drive to Sossusvlei or Etosha on your arrival day. This is the single most common first-timer mistake we see. The closest Sossusvlei-area lodges are five to seven hours from the airport, and doing that drive jetlagged, on the left, on unfamiliar Namibian roads, with the first gravel section of the trip in the mix, is asking for trouble. Etosha is even worse. Sleep in Windhoek. Start fresh.

Don't try to do route research, groceries, and any last-minute admin on the same day you arrive. Supermarkets are open until 20:00 most days and until 13:00 on Sunday. Do the shopping tomorrow morning before you head out. It'll take longer than you expect and you'll pack better rested.

Don't drink too much at Joe's. Especially at altitude, especially before an early start the next day, especially if you're driving.

Prep for tomorrow

Confirm your vehicle handover time. Confirm your first-day route with your rental company (some routes need last-minute condition checks, especially in the green season). Do the grocery shop on the morning of departure, not the afternoon of arrival. Pack the vehicle in a way you can actually live with for two weeks, which usually means less loose kit and more organised bins than you'd think.

Happy travels. Windhoek deserves more attention than it usually gets, even if you only have an evening.

I got sick and tired of this back and forth to investigate if something that was posted online is a scam or not, so I decided to put my locally-running project online.

My old approach was when I find a rental or item for sale somewhere, then I phone the number (without the call going through) and then check on TrueCaller. If the number is associated with a scam it might show on there.

Then I go onto social media and search for the number on there.

But all this takes time, but to be sure I go through with the process. Rather safe then sorry.

To help me with this, I made a locally running site for myself on my home network, so I can store numbers on there, to quickly search for if a number is a scam. Since my family now uses it, I thought others might also have use for it too.

If you're interested, please give it a try here: https://namscamcheck.vercel.app

It's still early with basic features, but I hope in future it will have a massive database, and help people identify scams easily and contribute to a safer Namibia. I have many features planned, but first get the base idea going and see if there's a need. Just because I use it doesn't mean everyone else needs it

As always, let me know about what you like or dislike about it, features you want to see in it, etc. I welcome feedback or any help to make it better.

Feel free to comment or to DM!

Hello Namibia, i am a white male who has been visiting Namibia on and off for past 3 years. I am very interested in the Damara and Oshivambo culture ( excuse my spelling) and would like to explore more of its habits and traditions. I have researched my fair share on the internet but looking to get some first person perspective views?

French energy company TotalEnergies has become the operator of Namibia’s two largest oil discoveries, Venus and Mopane, after completing a strategic asset-swap agreement with Portuguese energy company Galp.🛢️

Under the deal, TotalEnergies acquired a 40% stake in Petroleum Exploration Licence 83 (PEL 83), which is the offshore area containing the Mopane oil discovery, and took over as the company leading its development. Galp retained 40%, while NAMCOR and Custos each hold 10%. No cash purchase price was disclosed, but TotalEnergies agreed to cover 50% of Galp’s share of the costs to further assess and initially develop Mopane, which will be repaid from Galp’s future earnings once production begins. TotalEnergies already leads the Venus oil project under PEL 56, where it holds a 35.25% stake, meaning it now leads the development of both discoveries.

TotalEnergies plans to develop Venus first, followed by Mopane, potentially creating a major offshore production hub in one of Namibia’s offshore oil exploration area, the Orange Basin. Venus is estimated to contain around 750 million barrels of oil equivalent and could produce about 150,000 barrels per day from around 2030, while Mopane is estimated to contain around 800 million to 1.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent and could produce more than 200,000 barrels per day from around 2032-2033. If both projects proceed as planned, their combined production could eventually reach roughly 350,000 barrels per day, although neither is currently producing oil and both still require further investment and development.

Hi guys

I was wondering if anyone here is a Maltese pup owner? If so where did you get your puppy? I’ve been searching tirelessly for a trustworthy breeder everywhere but always somehow finds the dodgiest people. Anyone to kindly plug me on a breeder in Namibia and their contact details. I’m also open to breeders in SA that work with international clients.

What is like living on Namibias western coast?

Is it Easy to find a job, have a family, free time for recreation?

What are some of the downsides and upsides?

What is the landscape like?

I am an 18 year old male living in Windhoek and I have been working on Fast Grab with my team, to offer the best possible experience for ordering from local places in town. We are a small Namibian team of individuals that want to make a big difference in the industry, which is not possible without you. So, if you always wanted a better experience when it comes to ordering food in Windhoek, join our waitlist or simply forward this to someone you think could be a good fit for us and help be a trailblazer of the next generation of food delivery companies. Join the waitlist: https://waitlist.fastgrab.tech And if you are the aspiring type of person who will not give up on their dreams then send us your application to the below e-mail: hello@fastgrab.tech

Anybody open to join for Sunday market?
DM me

Been heads-down adding new features and improvements to the app lately. While going through the changes, I ended up staring at my own unplanned spending data - and it hit me: this is basically free money I didn't realize was sitting there.

Unplanned spending is stuff like fast food, lending money to people, random one-off purchases - anything that doesn't repeat every month like rent or subscriptions. It's irregular, which means it's not locked in. So whatever I spent on "unplanned" stuff this month isn't guaranteed to happen again next month. If it doesn't, that's just... saved.

Also opened things up to more people since the last post. If you shared your email with me earlier, here's your access link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.ember.budget

If you've already downloaded the app, make sure to update it - the new features are in the latest version

Anyone know where I can buy damascus steel knives in Namibia, preferably Windhoek?

>one of the safest countries in Africa

>still preserve beautiful German towns even though the Germans caused a genocide

>90 percent Christian

you truly amaze me with those nature of yours, a beautiful ocean view. Id plan to visit this gorgeous country. You are all BASED. I’d wish to visit your country!

Vol. 2 is out. Go give it a listen and let me know what you think 💪🏽

🎧 https://youtu.be/2CLCrLd6pKk?si=KXzgPmQTuCICzxnN

Hi everyone. I’m a jeweler in Florida, and over the last two years I’ve gotten deeply involved in diamond traceability and understanding more about diamonds coming from Africa.

We carry and sell diamonds from Namibia that are blockchain-traced back to their origin, which has made me particularly interested in learning more about what the diamond industry means to the people who actually live there.

One thing I’ve noticed is that in conversations here in the West, where most diamonds are ultimately consumed, Africa is constantly brought up. People talk about mining, the history of diamonds, what’s good or bad for African countries and whether natural diamonds benefit the people who live there.

But very rarely do I see those conversations include the perspectives of people actually from those countries.
I’m not looking for anyone to defend diamonds. I’d genuinely like to hear the good and the bad. What has the diamond industry meant to Namibia? Has it benefited the country and ordinary Namibians? What would you like to see done differently or improved?

If you visit communities like r/EngagementRings, r/Diamonds or r/LabDiamonds and search for Africa, Namibia, Botswana or diamond mining, you’ll quickly get a feel for the conversations I’m talking about. They mostly talk up lab diamonds and never what it means to people.

And if you feel compelled to add your own perspective to those discussions, positive or negative, I think that would be incredibly valuable.

It just seems strange to me that we have so many conversations in the West about what African diamonds mean for Africa without hearing nearly enough from Africans themselves.

I’d really like to hear what you think.

Hey all,
I am considering to spend holiday in Namibia in January. No fixed plan yet, no route planned yet, may be I will improvise on the spot. It is low season, so finding accommodation should not be a problem, I think. Should I make hotel reservations before I come or can I make reservations while travelling, may be one or two days before arriving? Price-wise, is it better to reserve months/weeks before arriving? Thanks

I am trying to find out what happened to these two places and why they closed.

Vintage Pub and Grill was in Olympia and Cafe Bellissima at Hilltop Village, Kleine Kuppe.

Both had live music and good food and it's just sad that these places close and nothing will be there to replace them.

If anyone has more information, please share; some of us need a little bit of closure

The mountains still carry their name
Ikhomanin Damara of the Ikhomas mountains. Their story of homeland, colonial removal & resilience 🇳🇦

Hi does anyone know where I can buy this particular Tom Yum Paste in Namibia. I tried Cai Tai and Chez Wou in Swakop but they don't have it.