Living Desert Tour from Swakopmund

Living Desert Tour from Swakopmund

Tommy Collard was the first person to offer the ‘Living Desert Tour’, which he developed over a number of years. Nowadays there are two or three companies offering a living desert tour in some shape or form. All with good reputations!

What does a living desert tour mean? The tour is focused on examining the smaller creatures of the desert. You experience the unexpected life in the dunes up close with a conservation-minded approach.

You head off into the dunes, then tyres are deflated, and the search is on for desert creatures. Tommy is skilled at finding the majority of these creatures such as the Palmata geckos, sand-diving lizards, side-winders, FitzSimon’s burrowing skink and Namaqua chameleon on every tour. The drive through the dunes is a wonderful experience, presenting many photographic opportunities. You’ll also experience a ‘roaring’ dune.

The tour has become one of the most popular 4×4 tours in Swakopmund and in the height of summer (mid July to September) they have almost become too successful with quite large groups of people (up to 20) on a tour. During that time, you may want to book with one of the smaller companies which have fewer people.

We strongly recommend the morning tour (even with more people) than a private afternoon tour as the desert creatures are far less active in the afternoon. We also don’t really recommend the tour for young children as it is quite a specialist tour.