The Namibia Safari — Walvis Bay to Pretoria

In 1908 a railway worker named Zacharias Lewala, working on the line inland from Lüderitz, picked up a stone near Kolmanskop and showed it to his supervisor, the railway inspector August Stauch. It was a diamond. The German administration soon closed off a great stretch of the coast as the Sperrgebiet, the forbidden zone, and a town with a hospital, a ballroom and a theatre went up on the spot. It was abandoned in 1956, and the sand has been coming in through the doors ever since.

Rovos Rail's Namibia Safari stops a short drive from it. Rovos is the Pretoria company that has run its own private train since 1989, and this route takes it about 3,400 kilometres over twelve days, from the Atlantic at Walvis Bay to Rovos's own station in Pretoria. Nine of the eleven nights are spent in a compartment, one at a lodge in Etosha and one in the dunes at Sossusvlei. On the way it uses two of the railways Germany built across the colony: the Otavi line north to Tsumeb, and the southern line from Keetmanshoop towards Lüderitz.

TransNamib's own passenger trains are out of service, so a private train like this is the way to ride Namibia's railways at present. It is booked as a whole tour, months ahead, on one of a handful of dates a year, and in Namibia it runs with a TransNamib pilot in the cab beside the Rovos driver.

The train leaves Walvis Bay and heads straight into the Namib. The first stretch, to Swakopmund, was laid along the shore in 1914 and moved inland behind the dunes in 1980, and the wind still drifts sand across the rails. At Kranzberg, east of Usakos, the line forks: the train turns north-east onto the route of the old Otavi railway, built between 1903 and 1906 to carry copper down from Tsumeb, and rebuilt to Cape gauge on a largely new alignment, reopening in 1961.

North to Etosha, then back to the capital

The second day brings the Cheetah Conservation Fund outside Otjiwarongo, and the train runs on to Tsumeb, where the Otavi line ends. Guests go by road into Etosha for a night at a lodge and two game drives, then rejoin the train for the run south to Windhoek. From there a light aircraft takes everyone to Sossusvlei for a night among the dunes and brings them back next day for lunch, a city tour and the railway museum in the station building.

The southern line

South of Windhoek the train crosses the edge of the Kalahari to Keetmanshoop, where the line from Lüderitz arrived in 1908, and stops for the quiver trees at Garas Park. It then runs west on that line to Aus, and the coast is reached by road: the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the morning, lunch in Lüderitz. The train meanwhile doubles back to Holoog, a halt within reach of the Fish River Canyon, and crosses into South Africa after the canyon visit.

Upington and a cruise on the Orange River follow, then the Big Hole at Kimberley, and the train runs into Rovos's Capital Park station in Pretoria after lunch on the twelfth day. Rovos also runs the route the other way, Pretoria to Walvis Bay, and some departures start or finish in Cape Town.

The Namibia Safari is a tour, not a scheduled train. It runs on a handful of fixed dates, each sold whole, and nobody boards who has not booked. Every departure takes twelve days and eleven nights: nine aboard, one at a lodge in Etosha and one at Sossusvlei.

Departures fall in autumn and spring. Some run between Cape Town and Walvis Bay instead of Pretoria (6–17 April 2027 is one), and Rovos also sells the route from Pretoria to Walvis Bay, so check the direction of any date before booking.

The southern line has a recent history a traveller should know. On 1 March 2026 the last span of a bridge near Naute, south-east of Keetmanshoop, was washed away under a southbound Rovos train. The Rovos driver and the TransNamib pilot were killed; no passengers or other staff were hurt, and the guests went on by road to Upington and by air to Cape Town. The Namibian police and TransNamib both opened investigations.

Dates as of November 2026, as listed by the agents that sell the tour, among them The IRT Society (opens in a new tab), Jules Verne (opens in a new tab) and Distant Journeys (opens in a new tab). Confirm any date with Rovos Rail (opens in a new tab) before booking.

Rovos prices the Namibia Safari per person sharing a suite, in South African rand, and the fare covers nearly everything: the suite, all meals and drinks on board, room service, the excursions and entrance fees, the two lodge nights and the flights to and from Sossusvlei. French champagne is extra, and so are the flights to Walvis Bay and home from Pretoria.

There are three grades of suite: Pullman Gold at about 7 m², Deluxe at about 10 m² with a small sitting area, and Royal, half a carriage with its own bath. The 2027 rates are below; for 2028 they rise to R280,000, R355,000 and R438,200. British operators such as Distant Journeys and Jules Verne sell the same departures as packages with flights and hotel nights.

No rail pass covers the Namibia Safari. It is sold as a whole tour, suite, meals, excursions and lodge nights together, and the rail journey cannot be bought on its own. Interrail and Eurail are European schemes, and neither Namibia nor South Africa appears in Interrail's list of covered railway companies (opens in a new tab).

TransNamib sells no pass of its own, and with its passenger trains out of service there would be nothing for one to cover.

Checked November 2026 against Interrail's list of covered railway companies (opens in a new tab).

Most of what the tour is booked for lies a drive or a flight from the rails: guests leave the train at a station or a bare halt and are taken to the place itself, sometimes for a morning and sometimes overnight. The six below are the Namibian stops, in the order the train reaches them.

Nine of the eleven nights are spent aboard, and the tour books the other two: a lodge in Etosha (Mokuti, on the itineraries the agents print) and a lodge at Sossusvlei.

The cards below are for the nights either side. The Strand Hotel in Swakopmund, up the coast from the Walvis Bay departure, is where one British operator starts its version of the tour; The Capital Menlyn Maine in Pretoria is where the same operator finishes it.

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