In this post we share our experiences on how to travel gluten free in Namibia. T has celiac disease and needs a gluten free diet. We travelled to Namibia in 2024, when T was 18. Our trip was a three-week road trip where we rented a Toyota Hilux 4×4 with roof top tents. Here you find the itinerary and places we stayed.
Read more about celiac disease and how it affects T here.
Planning and preparation
We stayed mainly at campsites, but also had some nights in hotels. When booking hotels, we always ask to make sure they have gluten free options. All the hotels we stayed at were quick to come back with a friendly and positive reply.
We new that we would be away from large supermarkets on most of the trip, so we added availability of supermarkets to our day-by-day plan. In addition, we brought basic gluten free groceries from home.
We brought:
- Gluten free oats and müsli for breakfast
- Vacuum-packed gluten free bread from Dr Schär. It is not very filling, but we use it in situations with no better options
- Gluten free pasta
- Freeze dried meals of the type used for backpacking. We use it for lunch or dinner, when we cannot find other options. Real Turmat make tasty and gluten free meals.
Buying gluten free products
The Spar supermarkets are the largest in the country, but have a very limited selection of gluten free products. The best selection we found was in Windhoek and Swakopmund.
We bought gluten free pasta, müsli, rice and cheese. We did not find gluten free bread as we had hoped.
Restaurants
At most of the restaurants we went to, there was knowledge and understanding of celiac disease, and we generally felt in safe hands.
T most often had a game steak with potatoes.
