All activities / Wildlife Safaris / Damaraland
Wildlife Safaris in Damaraland
A vast, sculpted stone wilderness in Namibia's northwest, home to desert-adapted elephant and the largest free-roaming black rhino population left on earth, tracked on foot with community rangers.
Why here
Damaraland is where wildlife survives on a landscape that looks like it should have none. Across the Palmwag concession roams the last free-ranging black rhino population left in the wild anywhere, alongside desert-adapted elephant that walk dry riverbeds for water. You track the rhino on foot with the community rangers of Save the Rhino Trust, the organisation that has patrolled this ground since 1982 and cut poaching here by around 80 percent. Desert Rhino Camp, their joint venture with Wilderness, turns a night's stay into direct funding for those trackers. This is conservation you can walk alongside, not watch from a vehicle.
Best months
Tracking runs year-round, but the cooler dry months of May to October are the most comfortable on foot and the easiest for spotting. Rhino walks are on foot for over-16s, or by 4x4. Terrain is rocky and exposed with real heat, so this rewards a reasonable level of fitness.
Getting there & around
The Palmwag concession is remote, reached by a long drive from Etosha or a light-aircraft transfer. Rhino tracking is guided only, arranged through the camps and the Trust, never done independently. Most visitors fly in as part of a wider Namibia itinerary.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Desert Rhino Camp
OutfitterA specialist eight-tent conservation camp in the Palmwag concession, founded in 2003 as a joint venture with Save the Rhino Trust; guests track black rhino on foot or by 4x4 and a share of every fee funds the tracker programme.
Save the Rhino Trust
GuideThe conservation trust that has monitored and protected Damaraland's desert-adapted black rhino since 1982; its community trackers guide the on-foot rhino experiences across the Kunene region.