iPhone maps in Namibia

My husband and I will be self-driving in Namibia for 5 weeks this coming May/June. We'll be all over the country - from Kgalagdi to Damaraland to the Caprivi. I am interested to hear if anyone has had experience using the Tracks4Africa app on their iPhone. I know that the Tracks4Africa maps on the Garmin are quite good. However, we don't have a Garmin. The description of the iPhone app says that it works, even when you don't have cell phone or internet coverage. Does anyone know if this is really true?

Thanks.

I would contact the Tracks4Africa company directly and ask that question. We did an extensive self-drive throughout Namibia, including very remote areas, this past summer. We were going to invest in the Tracks4Africa maps, but we were assured by others that we didn't need anything other than a good paper map. We probably could have used a GPS one time (when we visited a very remote village that wasn't on our paper map), but we found our way just fine even then. Have fun on your adventure!

We did a trip for 20 days in July with Tracks4Africa paper maps and Tracks4Africa on an iPhone 4 with a local SIM card brought in the Windhoek airport from the MIC stand. The guy loaded the SIM in for me and added most of my credit as data. The Tracks4Africa app on the iPhone has all the map data already loaded so the there is no need for cell coverage or internet access.

We also loaded the Tracks4Africa maps on an iPad 3 / 3G but no SIM card and it works fine on there as well. While not strictly necessary we found having the maps on the iPhone was a great distraction on the long trips - nice to hear it tell you that the next turn is 100KM away! Even in the middle of nowhere like around Nambwa campsite heading towards Horseshoe on strictly 4WD tracks it worked great with no cell coverage.

The Sim and credit was N$332 and I loaded it as 1GB data and the rest maybe N$60 as phone credit. As the only time we had a 3G signal was in Rundu and the rest was Edge or no signal I only used a few hundred MB of data. We only phoned to make reservations so the phone credit was enough for us.The MIC card did not work in western Botswana where we were for 4 days.

Get the App it's fun to have along, plus it has all the Padkos information from the web site which was very helpful.

Thanks so much for getting back to me on this. I really appreciate your "on the ground" experiences. Thanks again!

Hi, and is it ok to drive with a paper map??? the road are well indicated? should we book a GPS?
Also maybe you can help me with some questions: is it possible to drive from Rundu to Kasane with a 4x4? should we do one day stop between these cities because of the distance?
and is it possible to drive from Kasane through Chobe and Moremi to Maun? with our car?

Thanks a lot!

Paper maps are fine, the first time I was in Namibia we just used the free map from the car hire place and it is hard to get lost as there are not many roads and the signposting is good. I have only driven as far as Kongola and the road is nice tarmac all the way. There is no need for a 4x4 on the main road. Stop around the Kwando River if you can there are lots of good camps and lodges.