Returning the car at Cape Town airport in about 24 hours from now. Plan is still mostly the same - going to hang out in Cape Town for about a week, then head north to Namibia.
Have gotten some good advice from talking with B&B owners about Namibia - where to go, where not to go, etc. Had one insist that I fly there from Capetown instead of doing an overland or taking a bus. Another thinks that doing a one way car hire would be the best. Haven't made that decision yet, figure I still have a week. Could always just hang out in South Africa longer as well, they give USA#1ers 90 days and I'm only at 30. They also don't stop the visa clock when you leave the country so it's all use it or lose it from the first time of entry. Thinking of spending that week in a southern suburb of Cape Town (Simon's Town, Fish Hoek, etc) instead of CT proper based on multiple recommendations.
Guessing I'll probably end up hopping on a bus up to Windhoek, then getting a car there for some exploring. Looks like I won't have Google's Project Fi in either Namibia or Botswana, so need to decide on whether to get a local SIM card in each of those or not. The only reason I'm hesitant is because I've read accounts of people doing that and the Fi SIM needing to be reactivated (which can only happen in USA#1) after being temporarily swapped out for a non-Fi SIM. It worked fine when I did that in the Maldives but the thought of bricking my phone makes me a sad chop.
Need to research what one way car hires from Windhoek -> Vic Falls would look like. Probably can't get away with tiny car for that given it's starting wet season and multiple people have told me that the roads get washed out in northern Botswana around this time and 2WD won't cut it.
Would really like to check out the Caprivi Strip (thin strip of Namibia along the north edge of Botswana) based on some advice but not sure how to make that happen unless I can get a 4WD one way rental Windhoek -> Vic Falls.
Another option is to go from Windhoek to Maun, Botswana, and use Maun as a base to explore from. That probably means I skip the Strip, which I'm not keen on skipping, but gives better access to the Delta.
More than one person from Zimbabwe has told me not to go, so I imagine I'll only briefly hang out there for a day or so at Vic Falls, and spend most of that time in Zambia instead, before heading on to Malawi, then northern Mozambique.
I've got some research to do.