Zimbabwe Safaris
More elephants than people. More wilderness than roads. More safari than you ever expected.
Zimbabwe Safaris
Zimbabwe is one of Africa’s most rewarding safari destinations, and one of its most underrated. Few countries pack such an extraordinary range of experiences into a single itinerary: the thundering curtain of Victoria Falls, the vast elephant herds of Hwange, the wild and unfenced riverine camps of Mana Pools, the boulder-strewn grandeur of the Matobo Hills, the shimmering waters of Lake Kariba, and the ancient stone walls of Great Zimbabwe. This is a country that rewards curious travellers with genuine wilderness, exceptional guiding and an intimacy that more visited destinations simply cannot match.
We have been travelling to Zimbabwe for over 25 years and it remains one of our favourite countries on the continent. Whether you are looking for a short break centred on Victoria Falls and Hwange, a longer highlights tour of the whole country, or a cross-border itinerary combining Zimbabwe with Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, we know this destination well and take great care in designing trips that bring out the very best of it.
Why Choose a Safari in Zimbabwe?
Zimbabwe consistently offers one of the most authentic and immersive safari experiences in Africa. Visitor numbers remain refreshingly low in comparison to other key destinations, which means you will rarely share a game drive or a walking safari with more than a handful of other guests. The parks and reserves feel genuinely wild.
The country is also home to some of the finest safari guides on the continent. Zimbabwe’s professional guide training is among the most rigorous in Africa, requiring candidates to pass a demanding series of written and practical exams before they are permitted to lead guests on foot. The guides who emerge from this process combine deep ecological knowledge with a warmth, wit and passion for the bush that leave a lasting impression. Many guests return to Zimbabwe time and again because of the relationships they have formed with the guides who showed them the country.
Zimbabwe also offers remarkable diversity in its safari activities. Walking safaris in Mana Pools are unparalleled anywhere in Africa. Canoeing on the Zambezi at Mana Pools or at Victoria Falls gives a completely different perspective on the wildlife. Boat-based game viewing on Lake Kariba, rhino tracking on foot in the Matobo Hills, and traditional game drives in Hwange’s immense open landscapes each offer a distinct experience. A well-designed Zimbabwe safari can weave several of these together into a trip that feels varied, memorable and deeply satisfying.
Combining Zimbabwe with Other Destinations
Zimbabwe’s geography makes it an excellent base for multi-country safari itineraries. Victoria Falls sits at the crossroads of four countries: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia are all within easy reach. From Victoria Falls, guests can fly or drive south into Botswana’s Chobe National Park, famed for its extraordinary elephant density, and continue into the Okavango Delta for a classic water-based safari. Alternatively, crossing the border into Zambia opens up the Lower Zambezi National Park and South Luangwa, two of Africa’s finest parks.
We have been designing these combination itineraries for decades and are well placed to advise on the best combinations, sequencing and lodges for any budget and travel style. Please get in touch and we will put together a personalised proposal.
ZIMBABWE Safari Ideas
From the thunder of Victoria Falls to the walking safaris of Mana Pools, Zimbabwe delivers Africa at its wildest and most authentic
Plan Your Zimbabwe Safari
Let’s design your Zimbabwe safari. Share your travel dates and interests, and we’ll craft an itinerary that combines the Falls, Hwange’s elephant herds, and Mana Pools’ wild beauty.
Where to Go on a Zimbabwe Safari
Zimbabwe’s national parks and reserves span an impressive range of habitats and offer very different experiences from one another. Below is a guide to the key areas we recommend.
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls is the natural starting or finishing point for almost any Zimbabwe safari. The falls drop over 100 metres across a cliff face that stretches more than 1.7 kilometres wide, generating a plume of spray that is visible from dozens of kilometres away. The local Kololo name, Mosi-oa-Tunya, translates as ‘the smoke that thunders’, and on your first encounter with the falls at full flood, that name makes perfect sense.
Victoria Falls straddles the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Zimbabwean side offers some of the finest viewpoints along the gorge, whilst the Zambian town of Livingstone provides access to other vantage points and activities. Many of our guests choose to spend a night or two on each side.
Beyond the falls themselves, Victoria Falls town is southern Africa’s undisputed adventure capital. Bungee jumping off the historic Victoria Falls Bridge, white-water rafting through the Batoka Gorge, microlight flights over the falls, sunset cruises on the Zambezi, canoe trips, game drives in the Zambezi National Park and visits to the elephant orphanage are just a few of the options available. It is also an excellent base for birding, with the riparian woodlands and river habitats around the falls supporting a rich variety of species.
Hwange National Park
Zimbabwe’s largest national park, Hwange covers over 14,600 square kilometres of classic Kalahari sandveld and mopane woodland in the northwest of the country. It is most famous for its elephants: with a population of over 50,000, Hwange supports one of the largest elephant concentrations in Africa, and the sight of a hundred or more elephants gathered at a single waterhole in the dry season is one of those wildlife experiences that genuinely stays with you.
The park supports over 100 mammal species, including lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, sable, roan, gemsbok and an impressive diversity of smaller predators. Wild dog sightings in particular have been increasingly reliable in recent years. Birdlife is prolific, with more than 400 species recorded.
Hwange’s dry season, which runs from July through to October, concentrates wildlife around the park’s network of artificial waterholes and delivers consistently excellent game viewing. The green season from November to April transforms the landscape with lush vegetation and brings vast numbers of migratory bird species, offering a very different but equally rewarding experience.
Access is straightforward: Hwange is a short scheduled flight or an easy road transfer from Victoria Falls, making it simple to combine both destinations in a single trip. A selection of private concession lodges along the park’s eastern boundary offer exceptional wildlife experiences with minimal crowds, and we work with several that we recommend with complete confidence.
Mana Pools National Park
If we had to choose one single park in Zimbabwe that best exemplifies what makes this country so special, it would be Mana Pools. A UNESCO World Heritage Site in the far north of the country, Mana Pools runs along the southern bank of the Zambezi River and offers a safari experience that is quite unlike anything else in Africa.
The landscape here is hauntingly beautiful: wide floodplains studded with ancient albida trees and mahogany groves, ox-bow pools fringed with waterberry trees, and the broad silver ribbon of the Zambezi flowing along the Zambian border. Wildlife is exceptional year-round, and Mana Pools is one of the most reliable places in Africa to find endangered African wild dogs, which den in the area during the winter months.
What truly distinguishes Mana Pools, however, is the freedom it offers guests. This is one of the very few parks in Africa where you are permitted to leave your vehicle and walk unguided in the presence of wildlife. For those who go with a skilled walking guide, the experience is even richer. Guests at the unfenced camps here fall asleep to the sound of elephants moving through camp, and mornings begin with the Zambezi mist lifting slowly off the river. Canoe safaris on the Zambezi provide extraordinary close encounters with hippos, crocodiles, elephants and waterbirds, and the sense of remoteness and wilderness is absolute.
Mana Pools is a seasonal destination, open from April to November, and the limited number of camps keeps visitor numbers low. We strongly recommend booking well in advance.
Matusadona National Park
Overlooking the southern shores of Lake Kariba, Matusadona is one of Zimbabwe’s lesser-known parks and all the better for it. This is a remote and genuinely wild destination that rewards guests with exceptional wildlife viewing in an area that receives relatively few visitors. Matusadona is one of the few remaining strongholds of the black rhinoceros in Zimbabwe, and rhino tracking on foot is one of the highlights of any visit.
The park offers a full range of activities including game drives, walking safaris, canoe safaris and fishing, and the combination of excellent wildlife and a dramatic lake setting makes for an unusually varied experience. Sunsets over Lake Kariba from Matusadona are particularly memorable: the vast lake glows amber and gold as the sun drops behind the hills on the Zambian shore.
Lake Kariba
Lake Kariba is the largest man-made reservoir in the world by volume, stretching over 220 kilometres along the Zimbabwe-Zambia border. It is a destination like no other: part lake, part wildlife destination, with a timeless, melancholy beauty in the submerged tree skeletons that still rise from the shallows decades after the valley was flooded.
A houseboat safari on Kariba is one of southern Africa’s most distinctive experiences. Guests cruise slowly along the shoreline at their own pace, stopping to explore inlets by tender boat or canoe, fishing for the fierce tigerfish for which Kariba is justly celebrated, and watching enormous herds of elephant and buffalo come down to drink at the water’s edge as the heat builds through the afternoon. The pace is unhurried, and the combination of activities, solitude and extraordinary scenery tends to produce guests who are completely converted to the Kariba way of doing things.
Matobo National Park
South of Bulawayo in the southwest of the country, Matobo National Park protects a dramatic landscape of ancient granite domes, balancing boulders and rocky kopjes that have been shaped by millions of years of weathering into forms that look almost deliberately sculpted. This is one of Africa’s most striking landscapes, and it feels very different from the big-game destinations of the north.
The Matobo Hills hold one of the highest concentrations of leopard of any protected area in Africa, and game drives and guided walks here offer excellent chances of sightings. White rhino can be tracked on foot with a ranger, an exhilarating and very personal experience. The park is also a stronghold for sable, eland and kudu, and for Zimbabwe’s spectacular diversity of raptors, including the densest known population of Verreaux’s eagle in the world.
The Matobo Hills are also deeply significant historically and spiritually. The cave paintings found throughout the area are among the finest examples of San rock art in southern Africa. Cecil Rhodes chose to be buried at a site here he called ‘World’s View’, a sweeping granite plateau with panoramic views across the hills. For guests travelling in southern Zimbabwe, Matobo combines superbly with a visit to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins and Gonarezhou National Park.
Gonarezhou National Park
In the far southeast of Zimbabwe, on the border with Mozambique and Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, Gonarezhou is Zimbabwe at its wildest and most remote. The name translates as ‘place of many elephants’ in the Ndau language, and the park lives up to it: the Gonarezhou elephants are known for their exceptionally large tusks, a product of the park’s relative isolation and decades of conservation work.
The landscape is extraordinarily diverse, moving between open grasslands, dense mopane woodland, dramatic sandstone cliffs and the winding gorges of the Runde and Save rivers. The famous Chilojo Cliffs, with their vivid red and orange faces rising above the Runde floodplain, are one of the most photogenic landscapes in all of Zimbabwe.
Gonarezhou forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which connects with South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park to create a vast, unfenced conservation area across three countries. Wildlife moves freely across these borders along ancient migration routes, and the park offers a sense of space and wildness that is increasingly rare in southern Africa.
Great Zimbabwe Ruins
The Great Zimbabwe Ruins are one of Africa’s most important archaeological sites and, for many visitors, one of the most moving. The ruins date back to around 1100AD and represent the remains of a medieval city that was, at its height, home to an estimated 20,000 people. The massive dry-stone walls of the Great Enclosure, built without mortar to a height of over 11 metres in places, are a remarkable feat of engineering and a testament to the sophistication of the Karanga civilisation that constructed them.
The site gave Zimbabwe its name at independence in 1980, and visiting it is both a historical education and a genuinely atmospheric experience. Located in Masvingo Province in the south of the country, it sits within reasonable reach of both the Matobo Hills and Gonarezhou National Park, and we recommend including it for guests on a self-drive or extended southern Zimbabwe itinerary.
When to Visit Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe can be visited year-round, with different seasons offering very different experiences. The dry season from May to October is the classic safari season: the bush thins out as vegetation dries, wildlife concentrates around water sources, and game viewing is at its most reliable. July through September is particularly good for walking safaris and for big-game sightings. October is the hottest month of the dry season and the most dramatic in terms of wildlife activity, as animals press ever closer to the waterholes.
The green season from November to April brings the rains, transforming the landscape with lush growth and vibrant colour. Migratory birds arrive in large numbers, and this is an excellent time for photography in Mana Pools and Hwange. Prices are lower, crowds are minimal, and for the right kind of traveller, the green season has a beauty and intimacy all of its own. It is important to note that some camps are not open in this period.
Contact us to chat about Zimbabwe Safaris
Frequently Asked Questions about a safari to Zimbabwe
Is Zimbabwe safe for tourists?
Zimbabwe is widely regarded as one of the safer safari destinations in Africa for visitors. The national parks and tourist areas are well managed, and the local people are famously warm and welcoming. As with any travel destination, sensible precautions apply, and we are happy to advise all guests on what to expect before they travel.
How long should I spend in Zimbabwe?
A minimum of five to seven nights allows a meaningful experience of two destinations, typically Victoria Falls combined with Hwange or Mana Pools. For a proper highlights tour taking in Victoria Falls, Hwange, Mana Pools and perhaps Kariba or the Matobo Hills, allow ten to fourteen nights. If you are combining Zimbabwe with Botswana or Zambia, twelve to sixteen nights across both countries gives a well-paced and varied itinerary.
Can I visit Victoria Falls from both the Zimbabwe and Zambia sides?
Yes, and we generally recommend it if you have the time. The two sides of the falls offer different views and the full spectacle is best appreciated from both banks. The Zimbabwean side has more walkways along the gorge rim, whilst the Zambian side offers certain angles that are not accessible from Zimbabwe. Both Livingstone and Victoria Falls town have good accommodation options and activities, and crossing the border is straightforward for most nationalities.
What activities are available on a Zimbabwe safari?
Zimbabwe offers one of the broadest ranges of safari activities of any country in Africa. Depending on the destination, activities include guided walking safaris, traditional game drives, canoeing on the Zambezi or Lake Kariba, boat-based game viewing, white-water rafting, helicopter and microlight flights over Victoria Falls, rhino tracking on foot in the Matobo Hills, fishing for tigerfish on Lake Kariba, and cultural visits to sites including the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. We design itineraries around the activities that matter most to each individual client.
Can I combine Zimbabwe with Botswana?
Absolutely, and it is one of our favourite combination itineraries. Victoria Falls connects directly with Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, and the two countries complement each other beautifully. Zimbabwe provides the drama of the falls and the immersive walking and canoeing experiences of Mana Pools, while Botswana delivers the intimate water-based safari of the Delta and the vast herds of Chobe. We have been designing these combined trips for many years and are happy to put together a personalised proposal.
How do I get to Zimbabwe?
The main international gateway is Victoria Falls Airport, which receives direct scheduled flights from Johannesburg, Cape Town and other regional hubs. Harare’s Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport is also well connected regionally. Within Zimbabwe, light aircraft charters and scheduled flights connect Victoria Falls to Hwange, Kariba and other key destinations, and a combination of flying and road transfers works well for most itineraries. We handle all logistics and can advise on the most practical and efficient routing for your specific trip.
