Holiday in Swakopmund

About Swakopmund

Swakopmund is Namibia's most charming coastal town — a surreal place where the oldest desert in the world meets the cold Atlantic Ocean, and German colonial architecture, palm-lined avenues, and a vibrant adventure scene create a unique mix. Between dunes, fog, and sea, Swakopmund feels like a piece of the German Empire that has wandered to the Namibian Atlantic coast. The half-timbered houses, the Art Nouveau facades, the Hohenzollernhaus, and the old courthouse tell the story of the German colonial period (1884-1915). Even today, many residents speak German, bakeries sell rye bread and apple strudel, and at the brewery by the sea, there is freshly tapped beer according to the German purity law. The dunes of the Namib Desert begin just behind the town: Dune 7, one of the highest dunes in the area, offers sandboarding and quad tours over endless orange sand mountains. The Moon Landscape — an erosion area of granite and gneiss — looks like the surface of an alien planet. The Skeleton Coast north of Swakopmund is one of the loneliest and most dramatic stretches of coastline on Earth: shipwrecks rust in the fog, Cape Cross seal colonies host over 100,000 animals, and the cold Benguela Current creates mystical banks of fog that roll over the desert. Whale swimming and dolphin tours in Walvis Bay, kayaking among pelicans and flamingos in the lagoon, as well as skydiving over the desert make Swakopmund Namibia's adventure capital.