16-Day Zimbabwe & Botswana

Upon landing at Harare International Airport, you will be greeted and driven to your lodge. You can take a city tour, visit an art gallery, or a wildlife orphanage, all of which are optional, depending on your arrival time.

After breakfast, you will depart for the famous Zimbabwe ruins/monuments. and you will arrive in this historic city around noon, in time for lunch. In the afternoon, you’ll have a tour of the monuments with a guide. The ruined metropolis of Great Zimbabwe is located close to the town of Masvingo in the southern hills of Zimbabwe. During Zimbabwe’s Late Iron Age, it functioned as the nation’s capital and what’s thought to have been the local king’s royal palace. The monument’s construction lasted from the 11th century through the 15th century. The stone city, which is 722 hectares in size, had a maximum capacity of 18,000 inhabitants.

You’ll leave early for the Matobo Hills National Park, which is 250 kilometers to the west of the great Zimbabwe, close to Bulawayo. Your first game viewing safari will involve an afternoon game drive. Matobo National Park features a diverse range of wildlife, including 175 bird, 88 mammal, 39 snake, and 16 fish species. Leopards, impalas, sable antelopes, and white rhinos are among the various animals. Black and white rhinos have been added to the wildlife park’s herd. Along with the two species, it has also been declared as an Intensive Protection Zone for hyenas, hippopotamuses, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, and ostriches. This is a park where you have a good possibility of seeing rhinos in their native habitat as well as timid and secretive African leopards.

Matobo National Park is home to a variety of wildlife, including Africa’s highest concentration of leopards, which, together with white and black rhinos, is a key draw in the landscape. In other parts of the park, you can find more noticeable wildlife such bushbuck, impala, kudu, giraffe, lion, baboon, monkeys, and more. There are a lot of dasies, sometimes known as rock hyrax, and there is also a lot of leopards. On this day, we will visit Cecil John Rhodes’ grave at the park’s highest point, Worldview Point, as well as a rock art painting in the morning. In the afternoon, we’ll go on another safari to see the wildlife.

After breakfast, you will depart for Hwange National Park. You’ll arrive at the Hwange Safari Lodge at 13:00, just in time for lunch. Since there are no fences separating the two reserves, you will join the late-afternoon wildlife drive at the Hwange Safari Lodge estate, which abuts the Hwange National Park. Predators thrive in the late afternoon, and these drives almost never miss them.

After breakfast, your guide will pick you up and take you to the Main Camp gate for the full-day safari in the Hwange National Park. There will be plenty of refreshments, including soft drinks, mineral water, and a picnic lunch. We will eat lunch on one of the numerous viewing platforms scattered throughout the park and aim to be back at the lodge by 16H00. The Hwange National Park has one of the largest elephant populations in the world and is known for its famous elephants. Over 65000 elephants live in the park, and during the dry season, they take over all of the watering holes in the late afternoon. Lion, leopard, cheetah, zebra, giraffe, baboon, warthog, buffalo, impala, kudu, sable, eland, waterbuck, and many other creatures can also be observed in the park.

You’ll take part in a second full-day safari in the Hwange National Park, leaving around 07:30 and returning around 16:00. Without the crowds, Hwange offers a safari experience that may compete with that of East Africa’s famous parks, the Serengeti and Masai Mara. You’ll spend another enjoyable day in the park, this time focusing only on finding your preferred animal or bird and even disregarding the other more prevalent species. You might even head back to the lodge sooner on a good day as you’ll have seen everything there is to see.

Following breakfast, you’ll be driven to Victoria Falls, where you’ll check in and take a guided tour. Nothing prepares the visitor for this heart-stopping experience, the sight, sound, fragrance, and humbling feeling that here is, without a doubt, Nature’s Master Pierce. The hike on this 2KM length of the falls lasts roughly two hours. You will be taken to the jetty at 16H00 for the tranquil Zambezi River sunset cruise. As you unwind with a sundowner and some munchies, enjoy the view of the river’s banks. Have your camera at the ready to capture one of Africa’s breathtaking sunsets. This two-hour boat tour includes all refreshments, light fare, and return transportation. Aim to return to the hotel around 19H00.

You will be picked up at 07:30 for the safari in Botswana’s Chobe National Park, which is just 70 kilometers from Victoria Falls. The safari begins with a three-hour wildlife viewing safari from a boat on the Chobe River during a game boat cruise. As the animals of Chobe National Park head to the river for a morning drink, you will have plenty of opportunities to observe them.

It will be time to head to the Chobe National Park in specially constructed 4×4 safari vehicles for the three-hour afternoon game drive after lunch at the Chobe Safari Lodge (or a comparable establishment). We’ll go to the section of the upper Chobe River that isn’t reachable by boat. Here, you can catch a glimpse of the shy predators (lions, hyenas, cheetahs, and occasionally leopards), sometimes on prey. The day’s camping location will be in the park, reached by the afternoon game drive.

Rise and shine, enjoy an early morning cup of hot, energizing tea or coffee. We will leave for an early morning game drive after a brief continental breakfast. Big cats and other nocturnals are most easily located at this time of day since they are still actively hunting, and with any luck, we might even discover them on their kills from the previous night. We will head back to camp in the late morning or early afternoon for a satisfying “bush brunch” and the chance to take a cool bush bucket shower.

After tea, another afternoon game drive is taken as the day begins to cool off, visiting previously seen animals again or exploring uncharted territory. Cats and large herbivores like elephants and African buffalo are the highlight of the diverse wildlife found in Chobe National Park, but other less common species like elands, sable antelope, and roan antelope can also be seen. Once the light has set, we will head back to camp for a somber campfire discussion.

After an early-morning safari in the Chobe National Park, you’ll head back to camp for breakfast about 9:00. We will break camp and begin the wildlife drive to Savuti National Park after breakfast. Around 13:00, when you get in Savuti, you will have time for lunch and refreshments. Another game drive in Savuti National Park is scheduled at 15 o’clock. Savuti is known for predators, including large cats (lion, leopard, hyena, and cheetah) and birds of prey. Spotted hyenas and their chilling howls are common, and many giant bull elephants spend their years here mostly alone.

The Savuti is well-known for being the arena where lion prides and hyena clans battle for food and territory. It has long been a favorite safari destination. Due to its secluded location, teeming wildlife, and diverse cast of predators, the remote area of the Chobe National Park has earned a reputation for providing unadulterated, dramatic game viewing on a global scale.

You will go on another early morning game drive in Savuti National Park before we break camp and head to Moremi National Park. Moremi game reserve is the sole protected area in the Okavango Delta, and because to the rhino’s reintroduction, it is home to the big five as well as a magnificent array of other wildlife in its islands, floodplains, grasslands, and woods. The Basarwa, often known as the bush people or the Bushmen, can be seen here. You can also go to their nomadic villages. Game drives, game walks, speedboat cruises, and the renowned Mokoro (dugout canoe) glides are all available activities in this area. After lunch, we’ll go on one last game viewing excursion before camping out for the evening.

This day will be spent in the delta, where you can go on wildlife drives, Mokoro rides, speed boat rides, or visits to the Basarwa (a group of bush people who also reside in the reserve). The instructions will help with the plans. Flights over the delta in a helicopter or on a fixed wing are also available as optional tours. This is not included in the package and must be scheduled far in advance).

This will be your final day in the wilderness before being moved to Maun, the town closest to the Okavango Delta. You’ll arrive in Maun in time for lunch at the Cresta Maun (or a restaurant of a comparable caliber), after which you can go shopping or simply stroll about this lively little town.

This is the last day of the safari; departure times from the hotel will depend on the time of your flight, therefore it is advised that you arrive at the airport at least two hours before takeoff.