Okaukuejo is the administrative centre of Etosha National Park and the closest rest camp to the southern gate. It is run by Namibia Wildlife Resorts and is best known for its floodlit waterhole, which sits immediately beside the camp fence and draws elephant, lion and black rhino through the night during the dry season. Accommodation ranges from premier chalets on the waterhole itself to standard double rooms and campsites. The camp has a restaurant, bar, swimming pool, shop, kiosk and fuel station, and offers guided morning, afternoon and night game drives. The Etosha Ecological Institute, founded in 1974, is based here, and a watchtower survives from a German fort built in 1901.
What sets it apart
Its floodlit waterhole is the single most reliable place in Etosha to watch black rhino after dark without leaving camp.
Who it suits
Black rhino at night; self-drive travellers; first-time Etosha visitors.
The essentials
| Country | Namibia |
| Where | Inside Etosha National Park, 17 km from the southern (Andersson) gate |
| Property type | lodge (national-park rest camp) |
| Rooms | 141 units — 5 premier waterhole chalets, 30 waterhole chalet double rooms, 2 family chalets, 20 bush chalets, 45 double rooms, 2 accessible chalets and 37 campsites |
What it costs
Okaukuejo Resort publishes its own rates. Published on the official site: double rooms "1,900–2,380 NAD per person (low season)" and "2,130–2,770 NAD (high season)", per https://www.nwr.com.na/resorts/okaukuejo-resort/, as listed September 2026.
Rates move by season and are almost always quoted per person per night sharing, so read the property's own page before you budget.
About the photographs
The pictures on this page are stock photographs of African bush and desert country, chosen to suggest the kind of landscape you find around the Etosha country of northern Namibia. They are not photographs of this property, and we cannot verify where any of them was taken — a stock library records the photographer, not the place. We use them rather than borrow the property's own marketing images, which would imply we had been there. For pictures of the rooms, see the property's own site.