How to visit where sand dunes plunge into the ocean in Namibia
Namibia is home to some of the biggest sand dunes in the world, and there's a stretch of coast in the country where the desert meets the ocean and these sand dunes plunge straight into the Atlantic. It makes for spectacular sights and photography. Here's a picture of what it looks like:
Where I was based: a town called Swakopmundon the Atlantic coast of Namibia
Swakopmund is the base camp to see a lot of the top desert sights in Namibia (Tripadvisor has a list of these sights here), as it's right next to the Namib-Naukluft National Park and right on the Skeleton Coast, which are two gigantic areas that contain lot of these sights
I flew into Walvis Bay Airport (WVB), which was a 45-minute taxi ride to Swakopmund
I stayed here for 3 nights in total. I paid US$98 per night for my hotel, and when I looked most of the hotels ranged from US$70-$130 per night
Lay of the land: map of some of the main places on my trip
How to see the dunes:
You'll need to book one of the privately run tours to see the desert. It's not really possible to do it yourself
There are a bunch of tour operators based in Swakopmund that offer dune buggytours and aerial tours
But I actually found Google to be better. The list provided by Tripadvisor was pretty incomplete. There were a bunch I found on Google that wasn't listed on Tripadvisor. I just Googled "Swakopmund aerial tours sossusvlei" and "Swakopmund desert ATV tours"
I ended up using these guys for my dune buggy tour and these guys for my aerial tour
For dune buggy tours, to see the most spectacular sights you should take one of the full-day tours south to Sandwich Bay / Harbour. The one I did was offered by these guys and cost US$130
For aerial tours, to see the best sights I recommend taking one of the aerial tours south to Sossusvlei. The stretch of coast south between Swakopmund and Sossuvlei is spectacular. The one I did was offered by these guys and cost US$450 (but this includes a ground tour at Sossusvlei as well)
The flight from Swakopmund to Sossusvlei and back is only ~2.5 hours
But, Sossusvlei itself is really beautiful (and one of the top sights in Namibia) and worth seeing, and some aerial tour operators (like the one I did with) will also offer full-day excursions to Sossusvlei that included not only the aerial tour of the coast but also ground tour at Sossuvlei (this is what I did and I highly recommend it)
What to pack:
Temperature at Swakopmund was really nice when I went, 15C - 20C. I was wearing my shorts and t-shirt and it was very comfortable
Power adapter: Namibia uses type D socket, like this. If you're North America or Europe (actually if you're from anywhere other than India or parts of Africa) you'll need a power adapter