Looking to do the same Southern African Road Trip? This guide is our comprehensive self-driving driving guide from Cape Town to Johannesburg passing through Nambia, Zambia and Botswana (with a pit stop in Zimbabwe for bungee jumping). Note that this guide is our live updates and advice from our trip and personal experience. Feel free to add your two cents in the comment section. We will update this regularly until we arrive in Johannesburg!

Get prepared for the road trip

• Food: Snacks, water, red bulls and other caffeinated drinks for the early morning or late night stretches.
• Accommodation: Mostly if you travel during high season, you need to book your stopover accommodation in advance if you don’t have a tent in your car or don’t plan to sleep in the car. Actually, if you even want a campsite, you might need to book in advance. We came to Sesriem, Namibia with camps being all full but managed to camp anyway besides the internet cafe!
• Planning: Try to stick to a driving schedule, which means to plan driving at safe hours between sunrise and sunset. If you are starting your trip late in Cape Town on the N7, no worries as it’s pretty much simple and flat.
• Border documentations: Prepare the needed documents you need for border controls like passports, driver’s licence, vehicle registration and cash to pay the fees at the border crossings.

Part 1 – Driving to the Namibian Border 

If driven with the wind in your sails, you actually can get to Namibia from Cape Town, South Africa in just about eight hours if you don’t stop at all. If you have time to explore, you can use the N7 as the skeleton of your route to branch out to some places before the border with Namibia. If no time, like us, just go north on the N7. Best time for this trip is during the winter. Going mid-April, end of April like us is ideal as you go before the high season and the weather is just the perfect mix.

Day 1 | Cape Town to Springbok

We did the most road we could during our first day considering we left Cape Town around 1 PM. We did not stop anywhere along the way.

Sleep: We went to sleep at around 8 PM in the Springbok Caravan Park at 100 RND per person. Left around 8:30km. 57639km at the start of the day.

Fees to drive your car in Namibia: To enter Namibia you need to pay around NAD259/20$US road fee and you should keep the slip not far till you exit the country. Police may ask for it at roadblocks, so you want to have it near for quick access. In our experience, we never got stopped once.

Border crossing to Namibia: We took the Vioolsdrift Border Post in South Africa. This border post is open 24 hours. It is also called the Noordoewer border (Namibia) is open 24 hours. If you continue on the B1, it is a Namibian National road so it is nicely tarred but if you take the alternative route that is more scenic through the Aussenkehr Nature Reserve and Ai Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, it will be gravel and you won’t be rolling more than 100 km/h.

Quick facts for your road trip in Namibia:

• Campsites in Namibia are generally great and we noticed bathroom facilities even at petrol stations are so clean!
• Of course, food (apart from meat) is more expensive in Namibia than in South Africa. If you are really on a budget and every dollar counts, then stock up in SA. Honestly, though, you won’t even really notice a difference but the country is very spread apart so there are not many pit stops for food so pack up!

Petrol stops:

• After crossing you will find two petrol stations, one with a shop and a Wimpy fast food (both take cards). It is recommended to fill up your tank there.
• The next tanking opportunity is 118KM away at Ai-Ais, which takes cash only. Unless you take an alternated route closer to the coast to skip Ai-Ais to go directly to Aus.

Sights from Cape town to the Namibian border

There is a lot to see in South Africa and the road trip from Cape Town to Namibia covers really beautiful and underrated towns along the N7. As for us, we aimed to be in Namibia the earliest we can to see things there. Here are some recommended places by locals and many travellers of places where you can potentially stop for your drive from Cape Town to the Namibian border.

• Piketberg: Around 115 km north of Cape Town, is this town amongst the Piketberg mountains surrounded by rock formations. You can check out the NG church, the mission villages of Moravia, Goedverwacht and Genadenberg, and the wetlands of Verlorenvlei.
• Citrusdal: Over the Piekenierskloof Pass, you can stop by this citrus producing town surrounded by farms. Only go there if you want to see its historical Baths fed by hot mineral springs. There is a hiking trail into the Cederberg, rooibos tea tours, Flower Route, hikes, mountain biking, rock climbing activities in the surrounding mountains, the Piekenierskloof zipline, Die Sandveldhuisie and the Old Village on Modderfontein Farm.
• Paternoster: A lovely small fishing village with a very long beautiful beach but not for swimming. There are a couple of nice restaurants if you like fish and seafood. Cool stop if you have time.
• Cederberg: If you are into hiking, walking, biking, this stop is for you.
• Hondeklip Bay, Dog Stone Bay: If you do take a longer time in SA, pass by this mystical coastal village to feast on a whole lot seafood but then, how many seafood stops do you really need to do on this trip? haha.
• Namaqua National Park: Stay near Kamieskroon at the National park if you have a few days to get to Namibia on the South African side. Be equipped if you plan to stop here with a compressor, tools, hitches, tyre gauge and a tow rope just in case! Be equipped in general for this trip, we will talk about it later on things you must bring.
• Springbok: It’s through the Namaqua of the Northern Cape where the months of spring transform the desert into TONS of coloured flowers. A lot of travellers come just to see the flowers but they are there only at specific times of the year. This is also the place we camped on Night one before the Namibian border around 1 hour away.
• Kamieskroon: You can drive along the Caracal Eco Trail, from mountain to sea and see the nice desert landscape.
• Vioolsdrift: This is another place well closer to the border thanks Springbok and you can enjoy the views of the Orange River from South Africa. It is about a 10-minute drive to the border of Namibia.

Day 2 | Springbok, South Africa to Luderitz, Namibia

Petrol stops:

• From Luderitz, the next petrol stop will be in Aus, 130km after.
• Then you will have Betta’s camping to refill which is 205km after. Small groceries shop is located there.
• Sesriem: 138km after the previous stop is another petrol station. There are two petrol stations in Sesriem including one that repair tires so make sure to check your tires there.

Sights:

• Luderitz: Luderitz is a little township that looks like it has been stuck in the 20th century feel to it. It has a lot of colourful colonial art nouveau architecture and has a cute little port. You can drive all the way to Shark Island to have a nice view of the ocean, where a campsite is situated. Shark Island used to be called back in the day, Shark Island Concentration Camp or “Death Island”. It was one of the five Namibian concentration camps used by the German empire during the Herero and Namaqua genocide of 1904–1908. We recommend you to learn more about this genocide by watching this BBC documentary.
• Aus: A sleepy lite township where we recommend you to stop at this gas station/shop/braai stop. They have everything you need in terms of supplies for the car and yourself.
• Kolmanskop: Kolmanskop is a must if you are in Namibia. It is a ghost town formerly a diamond mining town that by 1956 was completed deserted and left to the Namib sands taking over its houses’ walls. It is a photographer’s dream spot and you can spend hours exploring these houses invaded by sand dunes.

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Sleep:

• Aus: There is accommodation in this little quiet township and also a campsite owned by the same owners of the shop. It is one hour away from Kolmanskop, the main attraction around, so you might want to consider where you want to base yourself. As self-drive, we would recommend staying in Luderitz.
• Kolmanskop: There is no accommodation and camping here is not allowed. Camp close to here at your own risks.
• Luderitz: There is a lot of options for places to stay. Many like to go on Shark Island and there is also a campsite there. It is quite expensive at around N$500 to camp there, which is not worth it considering it is VERY windy. You must know that you are also camping over a concentration camp which happened a long time ago in the 1900s. If you don’t like ghosts, might want to skip this spot! If you are looking for a cheaper campsite, the backpacker hotel has safe parking in the back of their place for N$120pp. We recommend to might as well get a room for two at the price of N$350 which we did.
• In between Aus and Luderitz: There is nothing so if you want to wild camp, it is really in the open and you will see cars passing by. There is no place to hide!

Day 3 | Visiting Kolmanskopp | Driving Luderitz-Aus-Sesriem

Sights:

• Sossusvlei National park: Sunrise of Dune 45 is what a lot of people do but you will have to stay at the national park’s campsite for around $N200/15$US per person. The national park opens at 7-7:15 AM and the dune is 45km (around 50 minutes drive on beautifully paved roads at 60km/h) away of the drive from the entrance, plus you need around 15 minutes to climb up the dune, so if you don’t stay there you will miss the sunrise. Deadvlei is THE real attraction in our opinion. Dunes don’t really impress us much anymore considering we live in Dubai.

Day x – Keetmanshoop to Sossusvlei is 480km

• Ai Ais – Aus – Luderitz, 464km
• 12km before Luderitz is Kolmanskop, the ghost town in the desert where we recommend to stop and discover. It is a cool place to go mostly for photographers and other content creators. The ghost town closes at 1pm ?
• Day x – Luderitz – Aux – Sossusvlei (465km – 7h)
• On this drive, it will be mostly gravel road and sometimes it will be quite bad.