A Vegan View: Self-Drive Sustenance in Namibia
January 7, 2026
by Flo from the Safari Drive Sales Team
As I got ready for a self-drive trip to Namibia as part of my work with Safari Drive back in October, several friends were touchingly concerned that I would not find enough to eat knowing that meat and game is often the star of the plate in Southern Africa. Friends, I survived!
I am used to finding vegan menu options a little sparse when travelling (and even back home here in Wales) so I wasn’t worried much but I must confess I was hoping I would find some plant based milk for my morning cuppa and perhaps something tofu-like I could stick on a skewer and cook over flames. Most of the campsites I would be staying would have braai areas available to campers and I didn’t want to miss out on this quintessential safari cooking experience.
I knew that plant milks and tofu would usually be available in larger supermarkets and that you can even find some of the more processed and heavily marketed brands of “fake meat” here and there - but that is not really my thing. Shortly before I travelled, I quizzed some recent clients who were vegetarian about any food tips and restaurant recommendations they could give me, so some of what follows I owe to them!
Eating as a tourist in Namibia, generally speaking, and unless you specifically seek it out, won’t include much from the world of traditional indigenous cuisine. Menus are more likely to be influenced by the cuisine introduced by settlers during the colonial era of this area of Africa, i.e. German, Afrikaner and British. Describing the food and cultural history of Namibia is for another (much more qualified) author. Here, I am merely recounting my recent experience in the country which, as I suspected, did not leave me hungry!
The all important preparation
Safari Drive’s self-drive safaris usually include, for most clients, a mix of camping in a roof tent atop one of our fabulously well-appointed Toyota Land Cruisers and staying in wonderful lodges so a good deal of the time, your vegan (or other) dietary requirements can easily be sorted yourself as you’ll be cooking over the campfire and have all the equipment on board to do this – all you have to do is a bit of shopping.
Before we left Windhoek, we headed to the supermarket to stock up on fresh fruit & veggies, pulses, staples like rice, pasta & oats – along with a few treats (i.e. snacks of the sort you can find anywhere). We found soya milk, not oat, which I prefer, but luckily I am not too fussy. We didn’t find tofu where we shopped but we didn’t choose the largest store which would have more international type foods. Our haul gave us enough to sort out several nights’ worth of campfire meals and some lunches - we just ate left overs and snacks while on the road.
Top three, mostly one pot, campfire meals
- Mushroom, Spinach & Tomato “Malarky” with Baby Potatoes – our first night of camping – this big pot did two nights and a lunch - we just rang the changes mixing in pasta the second night and dipping in bread for lunch another day.
- Chickpea Curry with Rice & Foil Roasted Sweet Potato – rice cooked in with the curry to absorb some of the creamy coconut sauce – this was nice and spicy due to a slip of the hand when adding the curry powder!
- “Desert Porridge” – obviously oats but with grated apple, a spoonful of macademia nut butter and some cinnamon -a hearty way to start the day, and especially good if the morning is chilly – recommended by the veggie clients I mentioned.
When we weren’t camping, we ate at restaurants of varying quality and as you could easily predict, had a variety of experiences. Most try their best to offer something vegetarian but when it comes to a vegan offering this could at times be a stretch too far for some of the kitchens. It’s definitely going to help if you are willing to put to one side the feta cheese that is likely to adorn dishes even when you’ve explained you “don’t eat dairy” or asked “please no cheese”. I’m sure I also ingested a bit of hidden butter along the way…
Just as vegan options can be a bit samey when you’re out of the cosmopolitan areas here in the UK, the same was true in Namibia…but we enjoyed plenty of great meals too.
Stand out vegan restaurant meals
- On our first night in Windhoek – delicious curried vegetables and spiced sweet potato followed by a spiced poached pear;
- A fantastic nutty quinoa, tomato and basil salad at Okonjima’s Bush Camp restaurant;
- An all you can eat buffet full of interesting salads and vegetable dishes, nuts, seeds, dips, and breads at Etosha Safari Lodge;
- The best rustic chilli lentil dish and roasted beetroot at Etendeka Mountain Camp;
- Completely moreish veggie samosas at Garnish Indian Restaurant in Swakopmund (Blueberry Gin & Tonic also vegan and completely delicious);
- Namibgrens Guest Farm - stunning courgette soup to start, main course of roast veggies, rice and peas, with fruit salad laced with local honey for dessert. The food here was not only delicious but was obviously prepared with real care.
One surprising win was the food provided by Sun Sail Catamarans that we had while on their Walvis Bay Catamaran trip and Sandwich Harbour 4x4 Adventure - while our fellow tourists fought over platters of oysters on the sea and biltong on land, we had some very thoughtfully put together individual “picnic” boxes of salads, veggies, olives, nuts and crackers – all to ourselves!
“On the road”, finding food treasures was a bit more pot luck – arriving at the Solitaire fuelstop I really hoped to be able to indulge in some of their legendary apple pie but of course this was proper pastry made with butter so I had to settle for some good coffee, the lovely aromas coming from the bakery and watch everyone else tucking in.
If the negatives of travelling in Namibia as a vegan were some wayward dairy, too many boring salads of the iceberg lettuce, tomato and cucumber variety and an epic amount of fruit salad (which doesn’t really count as pudding in my book) then I think these were definitely outweighed by the good experiences. My only regret is not grabbing a chance to use the skewers!
A bit of planning, a willingness to be forgiving once in a while and having realistic expectations is all that is needed – I’d reckon that advice would be the same the world over!
