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Summary
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Duration
12 DaysStarts In
PretoriaRoute
Pretoria, Kimberley, Sossusvlei, Windhoek, Etosha, Walvis Bay
From Pretoria's golden Highveld to the Atlantic shore at Walvis Bay, this twelve-day journey aboard Rovos Rail is one of the most extraordinary rail experiences in the world — a sweeping, unhurried odyssey through the full breadth of Southern Africa and Namibia. The route takes in the diamond heritage of Kimberley, a sundowner cruise on the Orange River, the haunting ghost town of Kolmanskop, the elemental grandeur of Fish River Canyon, the ancient star dunes of Sossusvlei, the cheetah conservation heartland of Otjiwarongo, and the wildlife-rich salt pans of Etosha. On board, impeccable cuisine, beautifully appointed private suites, and the timeless elegance of Rovos Rail ensure the journey itself is as rewarding as every destination it connects. This is Namibia — vast, ancient, and unforgettable.
RAIL JOURNEY 12 Days / 11 Nights Aboard Rovos Rail Luxury Train from Pretoria, South Africa to Walvis Bay, Namibia, featuring Pretoria, Kimberley, Kalahari Basin, Sossusvlei, Windhoek, Etosha National Park and Walvis Bay. Includes private arrival & departure transfers, your choice of luxury cabin accommodations, room service, all meals, local beer, wine and soft drinks, onboard lectures and guided excursions as indicated in the itinerary.
Includes
- Accommodations as per itinerary
- Meals as per itinerary; breakfast (B), lunch (L), dinner (D)
- Sightseeing: per itinerary
- Train tickets as per the itinerary
- Keytours 24-hour emergency assistance
- Private arrival and departure transfers as per itinerary
Excludes
- Items of a personal nature
- All other items not mentioned as included
- Transfers not mentioned in the itinerary
- Travel insurance; please inquire with your Keytours travel consultant
- Gratuities for drivers, guides, and escorts
Itinerary
Day
1
1
Day 1
Day 1: Pretoria
Your journey begins at Rovos Rail's magnificent private station in Pretoria — worth arriving early to explore the museum and locomotive workshops before the late morning departure. Settle into your beautifully appointed suite, find a seat in the lounge or observation car, and watch the historic goldfields of the Witwatersrand give way to the broader Karoo landscape as the train heads south. Lunch, afternoon tea, and a formal dinner mark the day's unhurried rhythm, the observation car drawing a steady stream of guests as the South African interior opens up in every direction. Passports are handed to the Train Manager this evening ahead of the border crossing still days ahead.
Day
2
2
Day 2
Day 2: Kimberley
After breakfast, the train arrives in Kimberley for one of the journey's most compelling historical detours — a guided tour of the Diamond Mine Museum and the legendary Big Hole, the largest hand-dug excavation on earth, brings vividly to life the story of the diamond rush that founded this city in 1871. The observation car leads the train through the afternoon, offering a different and deeply satisfying perspective as the Karoo asserts its ancient, haunting beauty — a vast semi-desert formed over millions of years from the bed of an enormous inland sea. A formal dinner is served en route to De Aar, an important railway junction, as the journey pushes deeper into the interior.
Day
3
3
Day 3
Day 3: Upington & The Orange River
After a leisurely breakfast and lunch on board, the train arrives in Upington for a walking tour of this remarkable riverside town — founded in 1884 and named after the Attorney General who finally rid the Orange River of its notorious pirates — followed by a sundowner cruise on the water itself. South Africa's longest river at 2,432 kilometers, the Orange rises in the Lesotho Drakensberg and flows west to the Atlantic, its lush banks an improbable oasis in the surrounding semi-arid landscape. Tonight's Africa theme or smart casual dress code lends a festive warmth to the dining car as border formalities with Namibia are completed and the adventure crosses into new territory.
Day
4
4
Day 4
Day 4: Fish River Canyon
After breakfast and a leisurely lunch as the train travels the southern reaches of the Kalahari Basin, the afternoon delivers one of Namibia's most overwhelming natural spectacles — a transfer to Fish River Canyon, the largest canyon in the Southern Hemisphere and second only to Arizona's Grand Canyon in sheer scale: 161 kilometers long, up to 27 kilometers wide, and plunging nearly 550 meters into the ancient earth. The vast, silent grandeur of the rocky landscape is genuinely humbling — a place that makes the human sense of scale feel beautifully, usefully small. A formal dinner is served as the train continues toward Aus and the extraordinary Namibian south.
Day
5
5
Day 5
Day 5: Kolmanskop & Lüderitz
An early breakfast precedes a transfer to Kolmanskop — the famous diamond-rush ghost town being slowly, inexorably reclaimed by the Namib Desert, its abandoned rooms half-filled with sand in a tableau of extraordinary, melancholy beauty. Lunch follows in Lüderitz, a town of striking German colonial architecture, seals, penguins, flamingos, and the legendary wild horses rumored to roam the surrounding desert. The observation car leads the train after departure toward Keetmanshoop, the Atlantic coastal light glowing magnificently as the evening deepens. A formal dinner is served as the Namibian south reveals itself in all its austere, captivating drama.
Day
6
6
Day 6
Day 6: Keetmanshoop & Garas Park
A morning at leisure on board before the train arrives near Keetmanshoop for one of the journey's most photogenic and otherworldly excursions. Garas Park is home to approximately 300 specimens of the extraordinary Quiver Tree — Aloe dichotoma — their forked branches reaching up to five meters skyward in formations at once prehistoric and strangely graceful. Named by the San people who hollowed their branches into arrow quivers, these ancient trees create a landscape unlike anything else on earth and reward patient photographers at any hour. Lunch, afternoon tea, and a formal dinner are served as the train departs for Mariental and the great Namibian interior continues its quiet, compelling revelation.
Day
7
7
Day 7
Day 7: Sossusvlei
After breakfast, a transfer to a private airstrip begins one of the journey's most extraordinary interludes — a one-hour light aircraft flight over Namibia's dramatic interior to Sossusvlei, where the ancient Namib's star dunes rise from the desert floor in formations of breathtaking scale and color. Over five million years old, the iron-rich sand shifts from pale gold to deep crimson as the light moves through the day. After check-in and lunch at the lodge, an afternoon desert drive reveals the dunes at their most theatrical, and a bush dinner after sunset — the desert silence absolute, the stars overhead staggering — makes for one of the most memorable evenings of the entire journey.
Day
8
8
Day 8
Day 8: Sossusvlei & Windhoek
The final Sossusvlei morning begins before dawn with tea and coffee, then a drive into the vlei itself for breakfast as the dunes ignite in the first light — the colors shifting from pale lavender through amber to deep, burning red in thirty extraordinary minutes. After returning to the lodge to check out, a light aircraft carries guests to Windhoek for lunch at the Country Club before a city tour takes in the Trans-Namib Transport Museum, the Independence Memorial Museum, the striking Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Namibia Craft Centre. By evening the train departs north toward Kranzberg, a formal dinner served as Windhoek's hilltop skyline fades behind the carriages.
Day
9
9
Day 9
Day 9: Cheetah Conservation Project
After breakfast and an early lunch on board, an afternoon transfer to the Cheetah Conservation Fund near Otjiwarongo delivers one of the journey's most moving and purposeful encounters. Founded in Namibia in 1990, the CCF is the world's largest cheetah conservation organization — combining scientific research, community engagement, and direct animal care in the global fight to secure the wild cheetah's future. The visit is intimate, educational, and deeply affecting, offering a perspective on conservation that stays with guests long after the train pulls away toward Otavi. A formal dinner is served as the journey continues north and Etosha begins to fill the imagination.
Day
10
10
Day 10
Day 10: Etosha National Park
After breakfast, a transfer carries guests to a lodge within Etosha National Park — one of Africa's great wildlife destinations, its 22,270 square kilometers centered on the vast salt pan whose name means "Great White Place." The pool and lodge facilities are available before lunch and check-in, followed by an afternoon game drive of approximately three hours as the waterholes draw extraordinary concentrations of elephant, lion, rhino, and plains game in the golden late-afternoon light. Dinner and an overnight stay at the lodge offer full, unhurried immersion in the sounds, scents, and extraordinary stillness of the Namibian bush at its finest.
Day
11
11
Day 11
Day 11: Etosha National Park & Back on Board
The final Etosha morning begins early — a game drive as the salt pan comes alive in the dawn, animals gathering at the waterholes with a frequency and variety that makes every other wildlife experience seem modest in comparison. Breakfast and checkout at the lodge follow before a transfer back to the train at Tsumeb Station, where the familiar, beloved rhythm of the rails reasserts itself. The observation car leads the train as the journey heads southwest toward the Atlantic, and tonight's 1920s dress theme brings a wonderfully celebratory mood to the dining car — the perfect send-off for a journey approaching its magnificent coastal conclusion.
Day
12
12
Day 12
Day 12: Walvis Bay
The final morning is savored slowly as the train traverses the ancient Namib Desert toward the Atlantic coast — one of the oldest deserts on earth, its vast gravel plains and coastal sand seas stretching more than 2,000 kilometers along the shore. Breakfast is served as the landscape shifts and the ocean begins to assert itself on the horizon, the air softening and brightening as Walvis Bay draws close. The train arrives at journey's end late morning — twelve extraordinary days from the heart of South Africa to the edge of the Atlantic, through some of the most spectacular and rarely visited landscapes on earth.
Dates & Prices
6 of Apr, 2027
Tuesday
8 of May, 2028
Monday
7 of Nov, 2028
Tuesday
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