The operator

Seventeen years of driving the same roads and writing it down.

We are a Namibian-owned tour operator of nineteen people, based in Klein Windhoek with a coast office in Swakopmund and a workshop off the Western Bypass. We plan, we guide, we service our own vehicles, and we answer our own telephone. Nothing on this site is subcontracted to a call centre in another country, and no circuit is published until somebody here has driven every kilometre of it in the season it is sold for.

Talk to a planner See the circuits

A guide crouched beside a vehicle track reading spoor in the sand of a dry riverbed

Aba-Huab riverbed. Nine of our guides grew up within an hour of it.

2009Registered with the Namibia Tourism Board, TFA/00814

19Staff, all Namibian, fourteen of them permanent

11NTB-registered guides, four of them level three

3.1%Of turnover to the conservancies we operate in

01 — How it started

It began as a photocopied set of notes about fuel.

The company exists because two people kept being asked the same nine questions, and got tired of answering them on the back of a serviette in the Solitaire bakery.

In 2007 Ndeshi Amutenya was managing a guest farm on the C24 and Pieter Krohne was running a vehicle-recovery outfit out of Walvis Bay. Between them they spent most of that year pulling German hire cars out of sand and explaining to their occupants that a D-road is not a shortcut.

The first roadbook was fourteen photocopied pages: every pump between Windhoek and Luderitz with its opening hours, the tyre pressures that stop a sidewall cutting on the C14, and a hand-drawn diagram of where the 2x4 car park at Sossusvlei actually is. Guests kept asking to take it home. In 2009 the two of them registered as a tour operator, bought one Hilux, and started selling the notes with a vehicle attached.

Seventeen years later the roadbook is in its seventeenth edition and still revised every March, after the rains, by somebody who has just driven the route. The company has grown to twenty-six vehicles and nineteen staff, and has stayed deliberately short of the size where the founders stop knowing which car is where.

What has not changed is the shape of the thing. We do not run scheduled group departures. We do not sell a circuit we have not driven that season. We publish driving distances that assume 80 km/h on gravel rather than the optimistic 100 that makes an itinerary look shorter than it is, and we cap a driving day at 420 km even when a client insists they can do more.

We also say no with some regularity: to eight-day Grand Traverses, to Sossusvlei in a saloon car, to the Kaokoveld in a single unsupported vehicle, and to any itinerary that has somebody arriving at a park gate after it shuts. None of those refusals has ever cost us a returning traveller, and one of them has probably saved a life.

The workshop came in 2014 and was the best money the company ever spent. Every vehicle we hand over has been through our own bay on a 10 000 km schedule, with the tyres, the spare, the jack and the compressor checked by a person whose name is on the sheet in the glovebox.

02 — The record

Seventeen years, told in the dull entries.

The interesting years are not the ones with new circuits in them. They are the ones where something broke and the company changed shape because of it.

2009

Registered, one vehicle

NTB registration TFA/00814 issued in March. One Hilux, one route, and a roadbook run off at a print shop on Independence Avenue.

2012

First conservancy agreement

A formal access and guiding agreement with the Torra Conservancy, and the beginning of the arrangement that still puts a community guide in the vehicle for every elephant morning.

2014

The workshop

Two bays off the Western Bypass and a full-time mechanic. Roadside failures per thousand vehicle-days fell by roughly two thirds within a season, and have stayed there.

2016

Swakopmund office

A second office on Sam Nujoma Avenue so that coast legs, Sandwich Harbour tides and Walvis Bay collections are handled by somebody who lives with the fog.

2019

Dark-sky night made standard

After three seasons of running it as an extra, a clear-sky night at a gold-tier reserve was written into every published circuit and priced into the rate rather than sold on top.

2021

Eighteen months of nothing

Borders shut. We kept eleven of fourteen permanent staff on reduced hours, sold four vehicles to do it, and spent the time re-driving and re-writing every route in the book.

2023

Satellite messengers in every vehicle

After a puncture on the D3254 took four hours to reach us by relay, every self-drive unit now carries a two-way satellite messenger paired to the Windhoek duty phone.

2026

Roadbook edition seventeen

Revised in March after the rains, as always. Fifty-one pages, nine fuel stops with changed hours, and two D-roads downgraded to high-clearance-only.

03 — The people in the vehicle

Registered, examined, and from here.

Every guide holds a current Namibia Tourism Board guide registration, a valid PrDP licence and level-three first aid renewed every two years. Four hold the NTB level-three qualification, which requires an examined specialisation.

A senior guide in a field shirt standing beside a long-wheelbase vehicle

Ndeshi AmutenyaFounder · head of planning

Grew up in Tsumeb, ran a guest farm on the C24 for six years, and has planned every published circuit the company sells. Writes the roadbook revision each March. NTB level three, cultural and natural history.

A mechanic and driver checking tyre pressure at the roadside

Pieter KrohneFounder · vehicles and safety

Twenty-two years of desert recovery before this and the reason the workshop exists. Runs the service schedule, the tyre policy and the incident review after anything goes wrong. NTB level two.

A guide with binoculars watching a riverbed from a low ridge at first light

Josefina TjipomboLead guide · Damaraland and Kaokoveld

From Khorixas, ten years with the conservancy elephant monitors before joining us. Knows the Huab and Aba-Huab family groups individually. NTB level three, wildlife specialisation.

04 — Licensing, conservancies and community

Who we answer to, and what we pay in.

Namibian conservation runs on communal conservancies, and a tour operator working in Damaraland or the Kaokoveld is a guest of one whether it acknowledges that or not. We publish what we pay because the figure ought to be checkable.

Licensing

Everything a Namibian operator is required to hold, current and available on request.

NTB Tour operator registration TFA/00814, renewed annually
TASA Member of the Tour and Safari Association of Namibia
Guides Eleven NTB-registered, four at level three
Insurance Public liability and passenger cover, certificates on request
Vehicles Roadworthy certified, PrDP drivers, cross-border authorised

Conservancy partnerships

Formal access and guiding agreements, not informal arrangements at the boom gate.

Torra Conservancy since 2012, guiding and access agreement
Doro Nawas Conservancy elephant tracking, community guides only
Palmwag concession access levies paid per person per day
NamibRand Nature Reserve reserve levy per guest per night
Save the Rhino Trust annual contribution and vehicle days in kind

What that pays for

Reported to the conservancies each February and published in our own annual note.

3.1% of turnover paid to conservancies in levies and fees
Nine guides recruited from conservancy communities since 2012
Two bursaries a year for NTB guide training, fees and exam
Game-count vehicles lent for the annual north-west count
Water points co-funded at two Damaraland community sites

Are you a broker or the operator?

The operator. We hold the NTB registration, we own the vehicles, we employ the guides and we carry the liability. Nothing on the ground is handed to a third party except licensed sand and air operators, who are named in your itinerary.

Who answers the phone at 02:00?

One of four staff on a rotating duty phone in Windhoek. Not a service, not an overseas desk. They have the vehicle registration, the route and the workshop number in front of them.

Do you run group departures?

No. Every circuit is private, whether that is two people in one Hilux or nine in three. It costs a little more and it is the whole reason a route can be changed on the second morning.

Can we see the incident record?

Yes. We keep a written review of every roadside incident and will send the summary for the last three seasons to anyone who asks. It is not an impressive document, which is the point.

Talk to a planner

Ask us something difficult about the route.

The four people who plan circuits have between them driven this country for sixty-odd years. Ask about a road surface in February, a gate time in July, or whether your dates are wrong. You will get a straight answer, not a brochure.

Windhoek: 14 Nelson Mandela Avenue, Klein Windhoek
Swakopmund: Sam Nujoma Avenue, opposite the jetty end
Workshop: Erf 4118, off the Western Bypass
Telephone: +264 61 555 0142