The world famous Skeleton Coast is one of the main draw cards for tourists to Namibia. The Skeleton Coast is named because of the skeletons of numerous ships that were wrecked along the remote and inaccessible shores. This 2 million-hectare (20,000²km) park is one of the most inhospitable and least visited places on earth and is divided into northern and southern sections.

The windswept dunes and flat plains give way in places to rugged canyons and extensive mountain ranges with walls of richly coloured volcanic rock. Such is the extraordinary geology of this area, that some beaches contain a profusion of multi-coloured pebbles consisting of agates, lava, granites and others.

The attraction for visitors to this park is its untouched and mysterious barren beauty, swept by cold sea breezes and often enveloped in a dense fog. This sea mist accounts for the many maritime shipwrecks.

Desert elephants have been seen in the interior of the Skeleton Coast Park and have even been filmed surfing down sand dunes like snow-boarders. Desert dwelling oryx are completely at home in such dry conditions and springbok, giraffe, brown hyena, ostrich, rare black rhino and even lion are found inland where riverine bush supports the grazers and fresh water can usually be found. Cape Frio seal colony contains several thousand Cape fur seals, and whales and dolphins swim this coast on their way to and from breeding grounds. Immense whale skeletons are sometimes seen washed up on the sands.