Namibia VS RSA

[Tim Blackwell]

As others have rightly said, you can have great adventures in big country in either country with the right outfit.

I think it really comes down to what you want to hunt. When I wanted to hunt Greater Kudu & Gemsbok I went to Namibia. When I wanted to hunt Nyala & Bushbuck I went to South Africa.

I will return to both. And hopefully others!

Cheers
Tim

 

[Jeffro]

I am late to this party, but Namibia all the way, if you take your own rifle. Namibia: no permit, no hassle; show up at the airport, fill in your gun permit, and off you go. South Africa: trip to the notary to get passport and PAL notarised, then attempt the ridiculous SAPS form by yourself, or pay someone to do it, which requires you to pay, and send the firm your notarised documents, plus flight itinerary, letters of invitation, copies of your credit card, front and back, etc. etc.. Note: even if you just transit through the country. I have hunted SA four times, but would never go there with my own firearm again, but if you love red tape, filling out unintelligible forms, and want to throw away the financial equivalent of an extra warthog or impala, then SA is your place.
And most important, the hunting is easily as good.

 

[MarkCZ]

we have hunted SA and Namibia twice now. I wish I hadn't wasted the two SA trips. We had a good time got our animals etc. Now Namibia, were we hunt you have to work for your animals and because there are no fences you may take 2 days to get to see your quarry as I did on my Eland, only dropping it on the last light on the last day of holiday, what a feeling! Also the people are much more friendly and polite. I don't think I will ever go back to SA.
The thing with Namibia is you never really know what or when you may see animals and the remoatness is wonderful.
Markcz

 

[Ryan]

I've been to both and had a great experience in both. There's a lot of diversity in each country so it really depends on what you want to do and species you want to hunt.
Unlike @MarkCZ I did actually see fences in both, but on very large tracts of land so I'd never consider the animals confined in any way. I hunted eland on a 15,000 acre farm in Namibia and never got a good shot at one, and the main farm in RSA I was on had buffalo on it I never saw my entire time. Namibia has a lower population density but I drove into the Karoo to Beaufort West and back down to the coast and can say South Africa has some serious wide open remote areas too. As for people, no major issues in South Africa or Namibia. Jo-burg airport is definitely crazier than Windhoek but any large airport is. Beyond that I spent eight days hunting and nine days on my own touring all over the Cape of South Africa and everyone treated me great from small towns, parks and private parks, to Cape Town.

Good luck!

 

[Philip Glass]

One thing to mention is that sadly you can’t get permits to export most predators or nocturnal critters from Namibia. Not sure if this will change. In RSA with the right outfitter there are many options and permits can be obtained. Just wanted to throw one RSA’s way

 

[Mekis]

I know I'm late to this as well. What I liked about Namibia is that after checking effortlessly into immigration, the checking into the Namibian Police with your safari rifle was a simple form, which I downloaded and filled out ahead of time. The police were happy to see me and gave me the green light in less than a minute and I was on my way. As I travel Namibia there were some high fence hunting places like South Africa but they are few. Most appear to be free range and an earlier writer spoke of the friendly people I second that. Namibia is wild but their main blacktop roads are excellent and the speed limit is 75mph. I hunted with Orpa Hunting Safaris and Dirk has a main hunting farm of 15,000 acres and total acres of 101,000 to hunt if needed. I went alone as my hunting buddies bunted out. If I was taking my 11 year old son to Namibia I would definitely go with Orpa Hunts as the family atmosphere, the remoteness, the quality of free range game, and every night the cooking on the briaa simply would be very hard to beat.