SOSSUSVLEI, Namibia -- Our children kicked off their sneakers at the foot of their first giant sand dune here. As soon as we stepped out of the car, they were running and laughing up the spine of the red dune. Within minutes they appeared as tiny figures against the blue African sky. We scurried behind with our guide, Cornelius ''Bokkie" Mitton. Bokkie, which means ''goat" in Afrikaans and is a nickname he picked up as a child, shook his head. ''Are you really going to go up there?" he asked. We told him to take a breather as we followed the tracks of our children up the 500-foot hill. Cool sand spilled into our shoes. It was just 7 a.m. and our footprints, along with those of a few beetles and a jackal, were the only marks on the windswept surface. Soon, the children were running down the hill at breakneck speed and asking Bokkie for more. Never before had they begged to hike. Through the years, we have learned -- sometimes the hard way -- that traveling with children is about pacing. That means going at their pace, satisfying their interests, feeding their hunger, and finding a compromise between our desires and theirs. Namibia, more than any place we have visited, lent itself to the likes of our children.
Dune with a view
Where better to take a family vacation than Namibia, and one of the tallest sandpiles on earth
It is a playground for the young: It has rocks to scale, dunes to hike, quad bikes to drive, kayaks to paddle, sun to bask in, and water holes to sit by as lions stalk their prey. It was as though we were on an Outward Bound course, only with plenty of recovery time.
Sand shapes Namibia, which hugs the western coast of Southern Africa. In the desert, a sea of red dunes appears pink or dark orange, depending on the light. In the north, wind shifts the contours of beige dunes that sometimes spill over onto the sole coastal road that stretches into Angola; it is known, eerily, as the Skeleton Coast.
In the central plateau, the gravel and sand plains burst with long green grass after a good soaking rain. Months later, the grass fades to yellow, supporting wandering herds of gemsboks (a type of antelope), zebra, brown hyenas, and, in one section, even herds of wild horses, which numbered 147 at last count.
We spent three weeks in Namibia this summer, from the northern game preserve of Etosha National Park to the most southerly coastal town, Luderitz, which German settlers built more than a century ago out of the hard boulders along the shore. Namibia is more than a collection of places, though; it is defined instead by its vast open space.
Pancake-flat dirt roads, which turn pinkish in early morning light, stretch hundreds of miles. Every so often, a gas station appears on the horizon. They might as well put stop signs in front of each one: One thing you don't want to do in Namibia is run out of gas.