Namibia definitely has some amazing scenery, novel adventure sports and touring the country in a 4×4 with roof tents has been a dream of mine ever since I saw it was possible at a travel show in London. I certainly had a lot of fun moments on our 12 day tour, but sadly I can’t rave about my dream trip as it was dampened by sharing the experience with ‘the wrong company’.

Only minutes after first meeting our female travel companion in Livingstone, she declared, “I hate Africa”. Perhaps this should have rung alarm bells with me, that this was not the girl to take a tour of Namibia with, but I thought perhaps she’d had one of those days where you can’t get anything done and you’re a bit tired of travel, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and told her things would get better. Unfortunately it wasn’t a one-off grump and I’ve learnt to trust my instincts about people. We’ve also learnt that we shouldn’t pay in advance for a trip if we’re travelling with other people. It makes it hard to escape :o)

Despite everything I’m very happy to have fulfilled one of the Top 10 travel experiences on my list and my Namibia highlights were; running down Dune 45 and falling over, seeing zebras really close plus a giraffe drinking in Etosha National Park, land yachting and sand boarding in Swakopmund. It’s definitely a cool country.