Sossusvlei, with its infinite sea of rust-red dunes, bleached white pan, and gnarled old trees, is one of the greatest locations to see in Namibia. In front of a vivid red dune that reaches into the deep blue sky above, Sossusvlei is the oryx flashing its flowing tail and providing you front and side views of its amazing characteristics.

A trip to Namibia isn't complete without seeing Sossusvlei, climbing Big Daddy, and sitting atop the world's biggest dune, staring out over a sea of equally massive dunes that disappear into the western horizon.

The view is even more stunning when seen from the air, in a hot-air balloon at daybreak.

Sossusvlei is one of Namibia's most stunning views, located in the Namib-Naukluft National Park, Africa's largest conservation area. It offers great picture opportunity, especially around dawn and sunset. You can take a trip to the hauntingly lovely Deadvlei ('death marsh') for stunning sightseeing.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: Namib-Naukluft National Park
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: autumn or spring.

Most first-time visitors to Africa want to see the animals in the Namibia. They've only ever seen big scary creatures on TV or in photos. And for that, Etosha National Park is one of Africa's most spectacular wildlife reserves with an unrivaled safari experience.

The animal count is outstanding - 114 to be exact - with the entire quota of species including elephant, lion, leopard, black and white rhino, cheetah, caracal, brown and spotted hyena, giraffe, zebra, and numerous antelope. With 340 species recorded, including a high number of raptors, the birdlife is similarly spectacular in Etosha National Park.

The natural waterholes that ring an old pan attract a daily procession of animals, and camping in the park provides you access to a floodlit show. Stay in one of the private parks on the rim, go on a guided safari through the park, or simply relax by a waterhole with a thermos and binoculars - Etosha is the authentic African safari experience.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: 6AM - 6PM
• Famous for: elephant, lion, leopard, black and white rhino
• Entry Fee: US$ 6
• Best Time To Visit: July to October.

Swakopmund is the ideal base from which to visit Namibia's top two attractions, the Skeleton Coast - a fog-shrouded desert wilderness of furious waves, seemingly lifeless interior, and its own fair share of visual anomalies.

At the Skeleton Coast, dunes meet water, and there's much to see and do, making Swakopmund a great stopover between Sossusvlei and Etosha.

Quad riding, paragliding, sandboarding, and skydiving are among the adventurous sports available in addition to desert excursions, sea kayaking, and scenic flights. In a single day, become closer to nature and closer to your loved ones. There's nothing like a burst of adrenaline to separate life's priorities from its minutiae.

The lone property in the Skeleton Coast National Park is the one-of-a-kind Shipwreck Lodge. On 4x4 trips, you may chase desert-dwelling creatures or go on guided beach walks to see the wreckage of centuries-old ships that perished due to the Skeleton Coast's changing sandbanks, dense fog, and treacherous currents.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: 6AM - 5PM
• Famous for: sea kayaking
• Entry Fee: US$ 2
• Best Time To Visit: October to March.

Without a doubt a destination in its own right, but since it is so near to Etosha on the way to the Skeleton Coast, Damaraland's beauty and tranquility are sometimes overlooked.

Damaraland, with its rocky mountains, grass-covered plains, and every possible shade of brown from dark russet to bleached blonde, is at once gorgeous, unusual, and interesting, home to desert-adapted elephants, rhinos, and lions, as well as oryx, springbok, and hundreds of bird species. Except for the sky, which is always a brilliant, vibrant blue.

Damaraland is shelter to a variety of unusual species that have changed their habits to thrive in one of the harshest settings on the world. Here you may witness desert-adapted elephants, black rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, oryx, and springboks (gazelles). Elephants that have adapted to the desert may travel up to 70 kilometers (40 miles) a day through the desert in search of food and water, and unlike their savannah counterparts, they do not kill any trees in the process.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: rocky mountains, grass-covered plains
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: May through September is the best time to visit.

What can you tell someone who hasn't visited Victoria Falls about it? "Meh, it's just a waterfall," some would remark, yet even they will be amazed and strangely reduced down to size by nature's overwhelming might. Victoria Falls is a one-mile-wide cliff that drops 100 meters straight down.

The Zambezi plunges at a mind-boggling velocity of 90 million liters per minute down this cliff. The noise is intimidating, the vertigo is frightening, and the vista - from a rain forest across the canyon at eye level with the cascade - is hypnotic. During high water season of Victoria Falls, the spray will wet you down to your underpants.

Then there are the adventure activities, of course. A peaceful twilight sail on the calm river upstream of the falls, known as the Flight of Angels is a must-do. You're on your own after that. In the Zambezi National Park on the Zimbabwean side or the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park on the Zambian side, go whitewater rafting or go on a wildlife viewing safari.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: "Flight of Angels"
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: You can hardly see your hand, let alone the falls, when it reaches its peak in April.

The Namib-Naukluft Park is a location of exceptional beauty and tranquillity, with wide open expanses bordered by purply-blue mountains and unbelievable sunsets. The only thing you'll hear is a soft wind, and time appears to stand still, as if the clock had stopped ticking since Paleocene times (indeed there are preserved dinosaur footprints dotted around the country).

The Namib-Naukluft National Park, which contains the famed dunes and salt flats of Sossusvlei and is already included on this list, is undoubtedly worth a second mention due to the abundance of additional bucket-list-busting must-sees.

Let's take Deadvlei as an example for a sun-scorched environment of acacia trees (some estimated to be 700 years old!) and mud flats is a beautiful symbol of Namib-Naukluft Park.

The vistas get genuinely bizarre as you get closer to the beaches and the town of Swakopmund, as the arid plains rise to ridgebacks that resemble the maned spine of a prowling hyena!

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: Deadvlei, a sun-scorched environment of acacia trees
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: May to October.

The Caprivi region is Botswana Lite: it's on the same floodplain as Botswana, has the same rivers flowing through it, and the same species migrate between the two nations throughout their seasonal migratory routes.

Botswana frequently puts our clients' budgets in jeopardy, forcing us to revise our suggestions.

Enter the Caprivi, a wildness off the main path. The safari lodges in the Caprivi provide an experience of the African wilderness that you've undoubtedly imagined since viewing The Lion King. And you will not be let down. The safari lodges' beauty, animals, birdlife, quiet, and elegance are on par with the more costly places further south.

It also serves as a vital link for uncommon animals travelling inland and towards the coast, including the Namibian elephant and the African wild dog.

Following a civil conflict in the 1990s, the region is now focusing on its distinctive flora and wildlife, which includes zebras in Mahango Game Reserve, blue wildebeest in Bwabwata, and green grassland in Salambala Conservancy.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: The Lion King
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: June to September.

The Kalahari is for escapists, with its red sand dunes, swinging bleached-blonde grass, and infinite blue sky.

The Kalahari is a land of beauty, introspection, and huge venison steaks. Home to the San Hunter-Gatherers, the Kalahari is not without its share of animals, including lions, oryx, and those beautiful meerkats bopping their heads and chirruping at each other all day.

The rainy season, from December to March, is the optimum time to explore Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Animals concentrate around the pans in the Deception Valley region during these months as they travel through the park with the seasons. However, roadways might get quite muddy at this season in Kalahari.

The Kalahari Desert stretches from Botswana into South Africa and Namibia, covering a large region of Southern Africa. Antelope, elephant, giraffe, many bird species, and other predators wander the spectacular semi-desert savannah, which are protected by the country's national parks and reserves.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: antelope, elephant, giraffe, many bird species, and various predators
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: December to March.

The Fish River Canyon is massive in whichever way you look at it. From your vantage point on the cliff, you get a panoramic view of a huge flat country carved by rivers that have flowed for millennia.

Quiver trees and strange cacti dot the barren plains above ground, and the whole experience is unsettling in its solitude, as if you'd stumbled onto a location shoot for the sequel to Texas Chainsaw Butcher - only there's no one there to massacre. Nobody, by the way. The location is a wide and desolate region that is blissfully free of human interference.

Mammals, as well as a plethora of reptiles, insects, and fish, find sanctuary are in Fish River Canyon's wonderful habitat. Natural hot springs generate pools of water on the canyon's bottom, which attract a variety of aquatic birds. Mountain zebra, kudu, oryx, and gazelle are among the canyon's other occupants, attracting predators such as leopard, jackal, brown hyena, and bat-eared fox.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: reptiles, insects, and fish, find sanctuary in this wonderful habitat
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Between the 1st of May and the 15th of September, the canyon is available for trekking. Hikers are not permitted in the canyon outside of this time owing to the severe temperatures.

Kaokoland is like Damarland on steroids, on a goal to become the least explored portion of one of the least populous nations on Earth, due to its distant location, difficult access, and impossibly tough competition ahead of it. Kaokoland is unique. This is where we Namibians "get away from it all," albeit I'm not sure what we're going away from.

In Kaokoland, there are massive, nearly insurmountable mountain ranges, all of Damaraland's desert-adapted animals to the south, and miles upon miles of desolate, breathtaking magnificence The interesting Himba people live in Kaokoland, off the land and in connection with nature.

Kaokoland is likely to be on everyone's second-visit bucket list, since it is best suited to adventurous self-drive 4x4 camping trips with more than one car. After skimming the surface of this historic and lovely country, you'll want to return for a second visit. Kaokoland is also home to the intriguing mountain elephant, which has evolved to live in a dry environment.

• Location: Namibia
• Timing: Open all day
• Famous for: Damaraland's desert-adapted animals to the south
• Entry Fee: Free
• Best Time To Visit: Year-round.