Zimbabwe

Kingdoms past and present

Why visit Zimbabwe?

Zimbabwe has everything an epic adventure asks for: awe inspiring natural wonders, a sheer variety of landscapes from lush highlands to open plains, and rich seams of history and heritage in the ancient ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the most important kingdom of Africa's past south of the Sahara.

It is most famous for Victoria Falls, the largest curtain of falling water in the world, yet Zimbabwe is also a fantastic big game destination teeming with flora and fauna, where you can spot the Big Five and one of the largest elephant populations in Africa. For travellers who want to combine safari with world wonders and places of deep archaeological interest, this is the place.

Enquire about Zimbabwe

Capital City

Harare

Currency

Zimbabwean Dollar, though the US Dollar at the official exchange rate is more widely used

Official Languages

Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sign Language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa

International Airport

Harare International Airport (Harare), Victoria Falls International Airport (Victoria Falls), Joshua Nkomo International Airport (Bulawayo)

Climate

November to March: hot rainy season, roughly 30 to 19 degrees Celsius
Mid March to mid May: hot, roughly 28 to 15 degrees Celsius
Mid May to August: cool, dry and sunny, roughly 26 to 7 degrees Celsius
September to November: very hot, roughly 34 to 18 degrees Celsius

Victoria Falls water levels shift with the year's rains:

January and February: the Zambezi begins to rise; while levels stay fairly low you can take in the full scale of the Falls without being drenched in spray, with rainbows everywhere
March to May: the wet season ends and the Falls run at full flood beneath a vast cloud of spray
June: the water settles to mid level, a great month offering the best of both worlds
July and August: widely considered the finest time to visit, with water spanning the Falls' full width of up to 1.7 kilometres at a level that can be perfectly captured
September: mid to low water, the moment to appreciate the sheer scale of the gorge and its geology
October to December: the lowest levels, with little water over the Eastern Cataract on the Zambian side while the Zimbabwean side keeps flowing

Where to go

Explore Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls

One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, Victoria Falls is the greatest curtain of falling water on Earth. Some 1,700 metres wide, the mighty Zambezi drops more than 100 metres into the gorge below, creating a spectacle of pure natural grandeur. Columns of spray hang visible from miles away, which is why the Falls are known locally as Mosi Oa Tunya, the smoke that thunders.

Hwange National Park

Hwange spans roughly 15,000 square kilometres, making it one of the largest protected areas in Africa, and its elephants, more than 40,000 of them, form the biggest population in the world. With no reliable natural water of its own, the park is dotted with pumped waterholes where animals gather to drink, making wildlife especially easy to find through the dry season.

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city from the late Iron Age, sometimes called the Machu Picchu of Africa. Its walls were raised from stone without any mortar, and within them archaeologists have found great soapstone birds along with traded goods from far away: glass and porcelain from China, gold, and coins from the Kilwa Sultanate.

Matobo National Park

South of Bulawayo, Matobo offers a breathtaking landscape of massive granite outcrops and boulders balanced improbably on top of one another. Those natural shelters have been inhabited since the Stone Age, so here we find an incredible wealth of well preserved rock art alongside Stone and Iron Age archaeological sites.

Mana Pools

Over thousands of years the Zambezi has shifted its course, its abandoned meanders becoming oxbow lakes. These four pools, ringed by forests of baobab, mopane, mahogany and ebony, now form one of Africa's most celebrated wilderness areas.