
*Our Top Picks:
Victoria Falls · Livingstone · Hwange National Park
EXPERIENCES IN ZIMBABWE

Victoria Falls
‘The Smoke that Thunders’, or ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ are names far more descriptive of this colonial southern African dedication to 19th century Britain’s Queen Victoria, one of Africa’s greatest and most-visited attractions. Victoria Falls is known as Africa’s adventure capital because of the bungee jumping activities from the Falls bridge and the celebrated river-rafting starting below the falls, regarded as the world’s biggest waterfall when measured by the sheer volume of falling water. The Victoria Falls national park is relatively small at 23 square kms, but offers elephant, buffalo, white rhino, eland, hippo, and varying antelope species. One lodge on the edge of town has a sundowner deck, looking west over a waterhole, offering amongst the finest sunset views to be found in a national park.
Livingstone
Livingstone is Zambia’s gateway to Mosi-Oa-Tunya, less touristy, not as busy, and for some, therefore a little more exciting. The Knife-Edge Bridge takes you close to the cascading water and a steep footpath leads to the Boiling Pot, a huge whirlpool at the base of the Falls. What you’ll surely enjoy about visiting the Falls from this Zambian side, is watching the rainbowed columns of spray from miles upriver, while elephants cross the Zambezi river in the late afternoon. For those who like figures: at the height of the rainy season, more than five hundred million cubic meters of water per minute plummet over the edge, over a width of nearly two kilometres, into a gorge over one hundred meters below. Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is double the size of Victoria Falls national park and home to the same species.


Hwange National Park
Another iconic African national park, Hwange’s grasslands and mopane woods are famous for the large elephant herds, lions, and African wild dogs that ghost, stalk and run through them. One hundred species of mammals have been recorded in the park, including roughly 40,000 elephants and almost 400 species of birds. The dry season (from July to October) is the best time to visit Hwange, as with most southern African parks, when large concentrations of wildlife gather around those waterholes that still have water in the hot and unforgiving environment. As with most parks, Hwange is not just about wildlife, the Bumbusi National Monument including 18th-century ruins and pre-colonial rock carvings.