IT'S WHAT Africa used to be like, before everybody went everywhere and the airports, roads, beaches and hotels were all filled to capacity and beyond. Before the thieves moved in to prey on the innocent and stupid. Before the angry competition built up over ownership of land. Namibia is three times the size of Britain, yet it has only two million inhabitants; that makes it more than a hundred times less crowded. Such pressures scarcely exist.

Rafe, my son, is two years old. His South African mother and I want him to grow up feeling that he, too, is a part of Africa; Dee's family first arrived in the Cape in the 1720s. Yet South Africa can be dangerous. Hijackers have ambushed cars on the road to the Kruger National Park, the best game reserve in Africa, founded by Dee's distant relative, President Paul Kruger. We wanted to take Rafe there to acquaint him with his heritage, but it seemed better to wait until things were safer.

That was how Namibia suggested itself. It's a peaceable country where there are none of the land pressures that have ruined Zimbabwe. The small number of whites, who mostly speak Afrikaans, coexist easily with the majority. You don't feel as if you're taking your life in your hands when you go there.

We wanted to start in Windhoek, the capital (population 221,000), travel to the Namib desert, stay in game lodges that we had heard about, visit the Skeleton Coast, and see Etosha National Park - all in 11 days. But we had a secret weapon. Our friend Rynand is a passionate pilot, with his own small aircraft. Anxious to show us his native country, he had volunteered to fly us from place to place.

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Flying is another important part of Rafe's heritage. In 1908 his great-great-grandfather on my mother's side, the Texas cowboy and showman Samuel Franklin Cody, became the first man to fly in Britain: the centenary falls this October. In his two years of existence Rafe has flown a good deal on scheduled aircraft, but we weren't sure how he would react to being strapped into a light plane and flown from one bumpy airfield in the African bush to another.

We needn't have worried. From the moment Rynand wheeled his plane out from the hangar, Rafe was entranced. It may turn out to be his first lasting memory. As we hurtled down the runway he seemed intrigued, but nothing more. Then we soared upwards, and the trees, bushes and buildings that had been alongside him were suddenly below. He looked at me and said wonderingly: “Up in the air.” After that first hop, from Windhoek to Wolwedans on the edge of the Namib desert, he behaved as if flying was no more out of the ordinary than driving down the King's Road in London.

The climate was in our favour. The southern hemisphere winter is the perfect time to visit Namibia: no superheated air to cause discomfort, no mosquitoes on the ground. Even in the northern part of the country, where there is a mild risk of malaria in the summer, mosquitoes scarcely appear at all from May to October.

And so we travelled fast and in style from one pleasant game lodge to the next. Namibia plays Ireland to South Africa's Britain: being so (relatively) close, it caters to the same sort of people and maintains the same standards - but without the pressure of numbers. Everywhere we went, the food, comfort and service were good. Only the game varied. In a country that is largely desert, the animals aren't always present in large numbers. Still, at Wolwedans for example, where the Brückner family has bought up thousands of acres to create a nature reserve, we found ourselves concentrating on the kind of animals that you wouldn't notice much in the Kruger or Masai Mara: oryx, springbok, zebra, ostrich.

The handsome little jackals, which the early Afrikaners called “wolwe”, or wolves, became as interesting to us as lions or the cheetahs, which the Brückners have recently introduced. The small things counted. On one game ride our ranger braked abruptly and jumped out to show Rafe a large and remarkably patient chameleon loitering on the track. It turned red, orange, green and blue by stages, and Rafe was fascinated

Rynand flew us low over the wrecks along the Skeleton Coast, the bones of old ships lying inland on the sands from which the Atlantic has receded. Later, we wandered along the beach at Cape Cross, where the Portuguese landed in 1486, finding curious pebbles and the vertebrae of whales and smelling the rankness of the seals that had gathered in their thousands.

Then we flew inland to Mowani, another stylish lodge set among piles of rocks dumped in the plains by melting Ice Age glaciers. Here the greatest attraction is the desert elephants, which have adapted to life in the harsh bushland, becoming smaller and more aggressive than other types of elephant. The sight of a line of elephants proceeding in their stately way towards the waterhole in the golden sunlight is something that I think even Rafe will always remember.

Etosha is different. Like the Kruger, it's a national park, with government rules and government architecture; no candlelit dinners at Okaukuejo, where we stayed. But the wildlife is magnificent: lion, elephant, rhinoceros both white and black, giraffe. Careful, well-planned game management has ensured the protection of the various species; no rhino has been killed by poachers there for years, and numbers are rising steeply. Etosha is one of Africa's greatest success stories.

We ended up at the best place of all: the newly opened and luxurious Onguma Plains camp. Andre Louw, the owner, happened to be there and was a thoughtful host. The design is stunning: each individual suite is built like a tower out of mud-brick, with a distinctly Moorish touch. If you're staying in one of the outlying towers, staff prefer to escort you to your door: lions occasionally wander through the camp at night. I don't think I've stayed at a better game lodge. In the past I might have thought it too soft, and the food too good, but parenthood has brought out the sybarite in Dee and me. We enjoyed ourselves hugely.

And the boy? He often speaks of it all with longing: the elephants, the giraffe and, of course, Rynand's plane. Namibia may, I think, provide the African heritage we want for him.

NEED TO KNOW

John Simpson travelled to Namibia with Expert Africa (020-8232 9777, www.expertafrica.com), which offers tailor-made fly-in safaris: nine nights visiting Windhoek, Sossusvlei, Damaraland and Etosha costs from £3,578pp sharing. Scheduled flights from London to Windhoek, light-aircraft transfers between camps, accommodation in safari lodges, almost all meals and activities, and a complimentary Bradt guide to Namibia are included

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