Sossusvlei With Kids: Staying at Desert Grace in the Namib Desert

Sossusvlei is one of the most extraordinary landscapes we have experienced with our son. The enormous red dunes, seemingly endless desert and stark landscape of Deadvlei are unlike almost anywhere else we have travelled and even looking at the photographs now, it still takes my breath away.

We visited Sossusvlei in Namibia in April with our eight-and-a-half-year-old son, staying for two nights at Desert Grace as part of a longer journey through the country. We arrived after staying at Pelican Point Lodge and continued afterwards to Zannier Sonop.

I had expected Desert Grace primarily to be our base for exploring Sossusvlei and the Namib Desert. What surprised me was how much we loved the lodge itself. It is considerably more beautiful in person than I had anticipated from its website, with striking contemporary design, an extraordinary desert setting and some of the warmest, most thoughtful staff we encountered during our trip.

Staying at Desert Grace Near Sossusvlei

The journey to Desert Grace is part of the experience. You drive through the Namib Desert as the landscape gradually changes around you, with huge expanses of seemingly empty land giving way to different colours, textures and formations.

Then, in the middle of it all, you arrive at Desert Grace. The hotel feels very modern while remaining deeply connected to the landscape surrounding it. It is peaceful, isolated and slow-paced, with the desert always present.

We had two interconnected rooms, which worked brilliantly for us as a family. Our son had his own bedroom while remaining directly connected to ours, giving everyone considerably more space.

Our room also had a beautiful bathroom that opened towards our private pool. We could come directly into the bathroom from the pool, which became particularly welcome after returning from the heat of Sossusvlei.

The rooms look directly onto the surrounding landscape and we could watch wildlife without going anywhere at all. We saw oryx and gemsbok around the lodge, sometimes simply while relaxing in our room or beside the pool.

A Surprisingly Family-Friendly Desert Lodge

Desert Grace isn’t an overtly family-focused resort, which made the way our son was treated particularly lovely.

There were other children staying while we were there, and the staff seemed instinctively good at including them. They would come over to speak to our son, suggest things he might enjoy and find small opportunities for him to participate.

One afternoon, the bartender helped him make his own virgin Bloody Mary at the bar.

It wasn’t a scheduled children’s activity or something manufactured for families. Someone simply recognised that an eight-year-old might enjoy getting involved rather than sitting waiting for the adults.

The same thing happened after dark, when a member of staff brought out a UV light and suggested showing him how to look for scorpions.

He was fascinated. Scorpions fluoresce under ultraviolet light, so creatures that are almost invisible in the darkness suddenly become visible. It completely changed the way our son looked at the landscape around him.

Visiting Sossusvlei and Deadvlei With Children

The principal reason most families come to this part of the Namib Desert is Sossusvlei, and Desert Grace organised our guided excursion. The landscape is difficult to convey in photographs.

The Sossusvlei dunes in Namibia rise dramatically from the desert floor, their intense colours changing against an enormous blue sky. The scale, emptiness and contrast are extraordinary. At moments it felt less like somewhere on Earth and more like we had landed on Mars.

We also visited Deadvlei, perhaps the most surreal landscape of all. Its pale clay pan, skeletal trees and towering red-orange dunes create a scene that barely looks real.

Our son climbed the dunes and then came sliding back down towards Deadvlei. He also became fascinated by the lizards moving across the sand, following them and asking questions about what he was seeing.

For him, Sossusvlei wasn’t something to stand and admire from a viewpoint. He was physically experiencing the landscape, climbing it, sliding down it, looking for animals and beginning to notice how much was living somewhere that initially appeared almost empty.

The Heat at Sossusvlei: What Families Should Know

One thing I would take seriously when visiting Sossusvlei in Namibia is the heat. We travelled in April and by the time we were exploring the dunes it was extremely hot. Our son coped remarkably well, but I became badly dehydrated and developed a significant headache.

I would go as early as your excursion arrangements allow and carry considerably more water than you think you will need. Climbing the dunes isn’t technically difficult in the sense of a conventional trek, but moving through deep sand under an intense sun is different from walking the equivalent distance on firm ground.

For families, particularly, I wouldn’t underestimate that combination of heat, sun and physical exertion. Returning to Desert Grace and jumping into our private pool afterwards was glorious.

Discovering Wildlife in the Namib Desert

One of the things I loved most about this part of Namibia was watching our son’s perception of the desert change.

Initially, the landscape can appear almost devoid of life. Then there were oryx outside our room. Lizards darting across the sand at Sossusvlei. Scorpions glowing under UV light after dark. He started actively looking.

That, for me, became one of the formative elements of the experience. Nobody needed to turn it into a lesson about desert ecology. The environment itself prompted his curiosity.

He participated, asked questions and gradually realised that an apparently barren landscape was actually full of life, you simply needed to know where and how to look.

Food at Desert Grace

We also really enjoyed the food at Desert Grace.

One of the things I particularly appreciated was the enormous salad selection available at meals. During longer luxury-hotel trips, food can sometimes become relentlessly rich, and there were days when all we wanted was something fresh and simple.

Families were thoughtfully considered too. There was a children’s section, a pizza area and an ice-cream bar, all of which naturally appealed to our son. Again, none of this made Desert Grace feel like a conventional family resort. It simply felt like a hotel that had thought about the different people staying there.

How Long Do You Need for Sossusvlei?

I would recommend two nights at Desert Grace, although three would work well if you want a slower stay. You need enough time to experience Sossusvlei and Deadvlei without treating the lodge merely as somewhere to sleep between excursions.

For us, the private pool, desert wildlife and small experiences arranged by the staff became an important part of the stay itself.

Two nights worked well within our wider Namibia itinerary, while three would allow more time simply to enjoy the isolation and landscape.

Is Desert Grace a Good Base for Sossusvlei With Kids?

For us, absolutely. Desert Grace gave us access to one of the most extraordinary parts of the Namib Desert and Sossusvlei, while also providing somewhere we genuinely wanted to return to at the end of the day.

More importantly, it worked exceptionally well with our eight-year-old without trying too hard to be a children’s hotel. He made a drink behind the bar. He searched for scorpions in the darkness. He watched oryx from our room, found lizards amongst the dunes and climbed through one of the most dramatic landscapes he had ever encountered.

We arrived expecting Sossusvlei to be the experience we remembered. We left remembering Desert Grace too.

More From Our Namibia Journey

Desert Grace formed part of a much wider journey through Namibia. Before travelling towards Sossusvlei, we stayed at Pelican Point Lodge on the remote peninsula near Walvis Bay, surrounded by a completely different coastal landscape and wildlife. From Desert Grace, we continued through the Namib Desert to Zannier Sonop, where riding on horseback across the desert became one of our son’s favourite experiences, before later travelling north to Wilderness Doro Nawas in Damaraland.

Together, these stays amongst others we had in Namibia, revealed just how dramatically Namibia changes as you travel through it and why I think it works particularly well as a journey rather than a single-destination holiday.

Planning or Booking Your Stay

You can book directly with Desert Grace, or, if you are planning a wider Namibia trip, I can design a Formative Travel™ itinerary around your family’s interests, your child’s age and stage, and the experiences you want the journey to offer, via our Formative Travel Advisory.

Where accommodation forms part of an itinerary, I work with established luxury travel partners who can facilitate the booking. For a small number of clients, I can also arrange the hotel booking directly through a Little Emperors, Virtuoso-aligned luxury travel service. Depending on the property, rate and availability, this may also provide access to benefits such as hotel credit, room upgrades, welcome amenities and early check-in or late check-out.

Shanti

The Kensington Diary