The hook
A landscape of towering rust-red sand dunes, among the highest on earth, marching across the ancient Namib desert, and, hidden among them, a white clay pan studded with the black skeletons of long-dead trees.
01Why it's worth it
The Namib is one of the oldest deserts in the world, and around Sossusvlei it throws up a sea of enormous star-shaped dunes, their sand a deep orange-red, some rising over three hundred metres, glowing and shadowing dramatically in the low light of dawn and dusk. Climbing a dune ridge as the sun comes up, with the desert stretching endlessly below, is unforgettable. The area's most iconic sight is Deadvlei, a stark white clay pan surrounded by giant dunes, where the blackened, skeletal trunks of camel-thorn trees, dead for centuries but too dry to rot, stand against the orange sand and blue sky in a scene that looks almost unreal. Nearby, the Sesriem Canyon and the endless gravel plains complete the picture of a vast, silent, mineral world. It is remote but well set up for visitors, and it is Namibia's signature landscape, best experienced in the first hours of the day.
02How to experience it
Enter at sunrise for the light and cooler air, drive in toward the dunes, and walk out to Deadvlei for the dead trees against the red sand. Climb a dune (Big Daddy or Dune 45) for the view if you're fit, before the heat. Stay overnight nearby to be at the gate at opening.