andBeyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge

Rebuilt from the ground up a few years ago, this lodge sits alone on a 12,000-hectare private reserve at the foot of the Nubib mountains, roughly an hour's drive from the Sossusvlei dunes. The ten suites are built of local stone and glass, each with a private plunge pool, an outdoor shower and a skylight above the bed for watching a sky that carries almost no light pollution.

Days here are shaped around the desert rather than around game drives. Guests set off before dawn for the dune fields at Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, walk the gravel plains with a guide who reads tracks in the sand, or take a quad-bike route across the reserve. Afternoons tend toward the spa, the pool or simply the quiet of a suite.

After dark the lodge's own observatory and resident astronomer take over. The NamibRand area is one of Africa's few designated dark-sky reserves, and the telescope sessions are genuinely one of the better reasons to come.