Dead Valley Lodge

Twenty tents, seven staff and two German campers

In early October 2020 a reporter from New Era drove out to Sesriem and found Dead Valley Lodge with no visitors except two campers. Both were German. The lodge had opened on 1 July 2019 with 20 tented chalets, its guests were usually from Germany, Italy, France and England, and it had less than a year of them before the borders closed. Klaus Pritzen, who managed the place with Gerda van Niekerk, told the paper that 25 people had worked there before lockdown and seven were still on duty. The rest were on what he called “sabbatical”, and were being brought back on monthly contracts instead of being retrenched. Stock had expired on the shelves and been written off.

It is still here, which says something about how badly people want to sleep inside the gate.

A farm called Elim

The pool faces Elim Dune, about 5 km beyond the gate, and the dune is said to be named after a farm that was here before there was a national park. Elim is the camp in Exodus where the Israelites found twelve springs and seventy palm trees. Whoever chose that name for a farm on the edge of a dune sea was an optimist.

The lodge itself is a joint venture between the state’s Namibia Wildlife Resorts and a private company, Sun Karros, which says it put more than N$43 million into building it. The two had worked together before. Sun Karros, part of the Prosperity Group, signed a 30 year lease at Daan Viljoen outside Windhoek in 2008 and reopened that rest camp in 2011. Dead Valley is the newer and slightly smarter sister.

Nobody should book it expecting a wilderness camp. It stands at Sesriem with the park office, the campsite and the fuel station for neighbours, and one guest in November 2022 marked it down for exactly that.

Oryx at dinner, and not much else

Oryx are close to certain. They turn up in 94 per cent of the sighting records guests have filed with Expert Africa, and a visitor in October 2025 watched some come to the waterhole next to the dining area during the evening buffet. Another guest the October before added ostrich. A few logged wildebeest or zebra without saying where. Brown hyaena, spotted hyaena, cheetah and leopard all stand at nought in that record. Come for dunes.

The wind, the cold and the walk to the loo

Guest reports from 2022 onwards agree on a few things the brochure leaves out. The restaurant and lounge are open to the air. One visitor in October 2022 found the restaurant windy and another a month later complained of dust blowing into the lounge. The tents are big (one guest gave hers as 18 feet by 20), but the bathroom is reached across an open patio. Five separate parties mentioned that in 2022, and one called it poor design for a trip in the night. A July 2024 guest reported no heating and a very chilly night and early morning, and an August 2022 visitor was glad of thermals. Guests in October 2024 were out at 5am for the dunes on a day that passed 40°C.

Opinions on the building split. Several call the design stylish. One party in May 2024 liked the look and then listed a dim bathroom, no socket near the bed and a small pool. A guest in October 2025 thought the dining area more like a canteen, though one with a desert view.

One account is worth knowing about if you book the lodge’s sunrise drive. A guest in March 2022 wrote that after an argument about the park’s 60 km/h limit the guide drove them to the vlei at 90 to be first there. Deadvlei gets crowded in peak season (an August 2022 guest called Sossusvlei the one place on a Namibian trip with too many people), so the rush has a reason, but the speeding is a single traveller’s report.