Plan your safari
Elephant family drinking at a waterhole at sunset in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

Hwange National Park

Hwange: tens of thousands of elephants and Africa’s best-trained guides.

Plan your safari Highlights

Zimbabwe’s flagship park, Hwange spans 14,600 square kilometers of Kalahari sandveld holding around 45,000 elephant, strong lion prides and one of Africa’s most important populations of endangered painted dog.

Zimbabwe’s professional-guide license is the hardest to earn in Africa, and it shows: walking here is superb, and the private concessions also run pumped waterholes where the dry-season procession of elephant is continuous. Also, the park sits two hours from Victoria Falls.

Hwange is Zimbabwe’s flagship park and one of Africa’s great elephant strongholds, with some 45,000 in the dry season, drawn to pumped waterholes where lodges set their hides. In fact, it is quietly one of the best-value Big Five safaris in Southern Africa, and just two hours from Victoria Falls.

Highlights of Hwange National Park

Elephant at the waterholes

Dry-season herds queue at the pans in their hundreds, while guests watch from sunken hides.

Painted dogs

Hwange is also a stronghold for Africa’s most endangered large carnivore.

Walking with pro guides

Zimbabwe’s full professional guides are licensed to walk you close, safely.

Victoria Falls gateway

Two hours by road from the Falls, an easy, natural combination.

Explore Victoria Falls →

Best time to visit Hwange

Jul–Oct

Dry season, with the waterhole spectacle at its peak.

Nov–Apr

Green season: migrant birds, newborn game and painted-dog denning later in the year.

Quieter seasons, considered

In the green months, however, rates ease at many of these camps, the plains empty of vehicles and the light turns dramatic. What each season gives, and what it trades, is set out in our Safari Planning Guide.

Planning & cost

Safari cost

Priced to your budget, and built around your camps, the season and how you like to travel. There are no fixed packages.

How we travel

Above all, every journey is privately designed, with private guides and vehicles arranged where specified, the finest lodges, and a specialist on call throughout. At fly-in camps, game drives may be shared unless a private vehicle is reserved.

Practical details,
in one place

Money, health, connectivity and packing work the same way on every safari we plan, so they live in one place rather than on every page.

Hwange National Park FAQs

In short, similar wildlife at notably better value, with guiding that rivals anywhere in Africa. Indeed, many journeys combine Hwange with Chobe or the Delta across the border.

A sunken, shaded blind at the edge of a pan that puts you at trunk level as elephant drink meters away. Hwange’s camps, in particular, run some of the best in Africa.

Fly to Victoria Falls via Johannesburg, then a two-hour road transfer or short charter flight into the park.

Getting to Zimbabwe: flights, visas and health

Correct when we wrote it. Before you travel, we check every requirement for your exact route and tell you what to apply for and when.

AirportsVictoria Falls (VFA) for the Falls, Hwange and Mana Pools; Harare (HRE) for connections. Both are reached via Johannesburg.
Getting thereConnect through Johannesburg, then about 90 minutes on to Victoria Falls. Livingstone in Zambia sits twenty minutes away on the other bank if that routing suits better.
Visa: US citizensZimbabwe issues US citizens a visa online or on arrival (Zambia itself is currently visa-free for US passports). The KAZA UniVisa (about $50) covers eligible Zambia–Zimbabwe itineraries for travelers crossing between the two. Apply only at the official portal: evisa.gov.zw.
HealthYellow fever certificate required if arriving from a risk country. Hwange, Mana Pools and the Zambezi valley are malarial. Country guidance: CDC Travelers’ Health.
PassportSix months’ validity beyond your return date, with at least two blank pages. Travel insurance including medical evacuation is required on every journey we plan.
Full flight guidePlan your safari

Plan your Hwange safari.

All in all, Hwange National Park suits travelers who want space, elephants and very few other vehicles.

So tell us how you like to travel and start with a complimentary consultation.

Plan your safari

For official park rules, fees and opening hours, see Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.