Accommodation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has the best safari guides in Africa, by a distance that is not really argued about, because its guiding qualification takes years and includes walking clients among dangerous game. That is the reason to come: this is walking safari country, and Mana Pools on the Zambezi is where it is done best, in open albida woodland where you approach elephant and buffalo on foot with a licensed guide.

The rest of the country arranges itself around that. Victoria Falls is the entry point and a destination in itself, at its most thunderous from February to May when the Zambezi is in flood and quietest from September to December, when the flow drops and the gorge and the Devil's Pool open up. Hwange is the big game park, with pumped waterholes that draw enormous elephant herds through the dry months. Lake Kariba and the Matusadona shoreline are the quiet corner, and Matobo in the south has the rhino, the rock art and the granite.

June to October is the season for everything except the falls at full flood. Mana Pools is open roughly from April to November and closes in the wet. Zimbabwe is a malaria area, so plan for it.