Zanier Hotela Omaanda

Sixteen kilometres from Windhoek’s international airport, on a 9,000-hectare private game reserve, on a private game reserve 16 kilometres from Windhoek’s international airport, Zannier Hotels Omaanda occupies ten luxury chalets within a 9,000-hectare private reserve where cheetah, wild dog, brown hyena, white rhino, giraffe, and various antelope species have been reintroduced to a landscape previously used for commercial cattle farming. The chalets are designed in the aesthetic of traditional Ovambo architecture — circular thatched structures of considerable size and comfort, with private plunge pools and viewing decks oriented to the surrounding bush — and the camp’s position close to Windhoek gives it a particular role in the Namibian itinerary as a wildlife experience that can be accessed on arrival or departure without requiring an additional internal flight. The reserve’s close proximity to the capital is also valuable for guests combining an Omaanda stay with the cultural and historical institutions of Windhoek.

Game drives in the private reserve focus on the reintroduced species and particularly on the cheetah populations managed in partnership with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, the world’s leading cheetah research and conservation organisation, which uses Omaanda’s reserve as a component of its broader landscape programme for cheetah survival in Namibia. Night drives, guided walks with a trained naturalist ranger, and visits to the CCF’s research centre are among the activities most closely connected to the reserve’s scientific purpose. The restaurant uses game meat and produce from Namibian suppliers in a menu that engages seriously with the culinary traditions of the country’s different cultural communities.

Omaanda’s conservation model, built around the CCF partnership and the active reintroduction of species previously lost from the landscape through hunting and habitat degradation, represents one of the most science-driven approaches to conservation-based tourism available in southern Africa, and guests who engage with the programme’s conservation dimension will find a depth of content that conventional game viewing in national parks does not provide.