Place to stay · Sesfontein
Sesfontein Guest House
Ten air-conditioned en-suite rooms in the middle of Sesfontein village, with a restaurant, a pool and guided drives into the Hoanib River for desert elephants.
Sesfontein Guesthouse sits right in the middle of Sesfontein, a village in the Kunene Region that the guesthouse calls the gateway to Kaokoland, north of Palmwag. Village life carries on around you here: donkey carts on the road, and roosters crowing long before sunrise.
What to expect
There are ten rooms, each with a double bed, space for an extra single, an en-suite bathroom, air-conditioning and mosquito nets. The guesthouse has a swimming pool and secure parking. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner, much of what goes into it is grown locally (bananas, pumpkins, tomatoes and onions among it), and the bread, banana bread too, is baked in the kitchen.
Activities run from the guesthouse. The main one is a full-day drive into the dry Hoanib riverbed to look for desert-adapted elephants, often paired with a morning visit to a Himba village. There is also a sundowner drive of two and a half to three hours, rhino tracking, and sleep-out packages with dome tents in the riverbed or among the rocks. Sightings are never guaranteed.
Practical details
- On the main road through Sesfontein.
- Phone +264 61 234 793, email reservations@sesfonteinguesthouse.com.
- The elephant drive needs at least two guests and a stay of two nights or more.
Good to know
Fuel is available in Sesfontein. Fort Sesfontein, a German police post from 1896 that was rebuilt in the 1990s, is in the same village. The same people run Ongongo Waterfall Campsite at Warmquelle, about 25 km south.
Last updated 7 October 2026. Sources: Sesfontein Guesthouse, Sesfontein Guesthouse fact sheet, Sesfontein Guesthouse, 2027 rate sheet, Ongongo Waterfall Campsite (fuel and distances), Wikipedia, Sesfontein.
