Iona National Park is Angola's biggest and oldest national park, a vast sweep of northern Namib Desert wedged between the Atlantic, the Curoca River, the Cunene River, and the escarpment that rises towards the interior plateau. It is not a classic easy safari park. It is raw desert travel: red dunes, gravel plains, dry mountains, shipwreck coast, and long distances where self-sufficiency matters.
The park forms the Angolan side of the great desert conservation landscape that continues into Namibia's Skeleton Coast. African Parks has managed Iona with the Angolan government since 2019, and wildlife restoration is slowly changing a landscape badly damaged by war and poaching. Oryx, springbok, Hartmann's mountain zebra, jackals, desert birds, and reintroduced Angolan giraffe are part of the story, but scenery is still the main reason to come.
The most memorable places are scattered: the central desert plains, the ranger area near Posto de Controlo, the hills around Serra Cauo Caiongombe, the empty coast at Baia dos Tigres, and the wetland edge of the Cunene River Mouth. Add the rock art at Tchitundu-Hulu and you have one of southern Africa's great remote routes.
Do not treat Iona casually. You need a suitable 4x4, reliable fuel planning, water, recovery gear, and current local advice on access and permissions. Many travellers visit as part of an organised overland trip from Namibe or Tombwa. Done well, it is magnificent; done casually, it can become a very expensive mistake.