Cape Town & Zim holiday diary: Zimbabwe leg |

This article is an overview of the Zimbabwe leg of our Cape Town and Zimbabwe holiday. It shows a suggested route covering Harare, Bulawayo, Hwange National Park, and Matobo National Park, as well as the logistics for the self-drive trip.

For a deep dive into the trip as a whole, make sure you read the 20-day Cape Town and Zimbabwe holiday itinerary. It gives info on the flights, logistics, accommodation, transport and more. The maps of the locations are in that post too (very important)!

Cape Town was the ‘soft landing’ for our holiday (and what a beautiful landing it was), but Zimbabwe was the grit of our trip. Zimbabwe can sometimes feel like the Wild West – from the drivers to the businessmen, I think you have to have a little bit of a cowboy spirit to thrive in Zimbabwe. You make your own rules here. And everyone is so genuinely friendly, open-hearted and relaxed that you can’t help feeling like you want a bit of that ‘live for today’ attitude, too.

Written by Beth

Contents of this article

• The Zimbabwe route at a glance
• Highs and lows of Zimbabwe
• Logistics for Zimbabwe self-drive

The Zimbabwe route at a glance

• Harare for 2 nights
  • Suggested sights: Domboshava Hill, Mukuvisi Woodlands, Avondale Flea Market, Harare City Walking Tour, Wild is Life, Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary.
  • Accommodation suggestions: York Lodge, Sunbird Guest House, Willow Lodge, Guinea Fowl’s Rest, Art Lodges, and Mount Pleasant B&B. For self-catering, there’s always AirBnB. I’d recommend staying in the North/Eastern suburbs rather than the city centre (map of Harare suburbs is here).
  • Eating out: Khaya Nyama Wombles, Mozambik Chisipiti, Gava’s, Café Nush, St Elmo’s Pizzeria, and The Bottom Drawer.
  • Read our real-life holiday diary of Harare here
  • For detailed travel info on Harare, see the Harare Travel Guide
• Bulawayo for 2 nights
  • Suggested sights: Hillside Dams, Bulawayo Railway Museum of Zimbabwe, Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, walking tour with Paul Hubbard
  • Transport: We self-drove from Harare to Bulawayo, but you can fly with Fastjet or Air Zimbabwe. We started driving at around 7:00 and arrived in Bulawayo around 13:00, which included stopping for a short break in Kwe Kwe. (In Kwe Kwe, you could stop at King Solomon’s Golden Mile Hotel for refreshments; An Eye for the Wild Sanctuary for a longer stop; also Kadoma Hotel).
  • Accommodation: We stayed in a B&B in a south-eastern suburb of Bulawayo, which had family rooms and a pool. Suggestions for Bulawayo accommodation include: Banff Lodge, Travellers’ Guest House, The Bulawayo Club, and Hornung Park Lodge.
  • Get supplies at: Zonkizizwe Shopping Centre
  • Eating out: Rooster’s Pub, Hillside Dams Cafe, Mozambik
  • Read our real-life travel journal of Bulawayo here
  • For travel info on Bulawayo, see the Bulawayo Travel Guide
• Hwange National Park for 4 nights
  • Activities: This is all about wilderness immersion, game drives and enjoying your local safari lodge.
    • You can choose to do a game drive as an ‘activity’ supplied by your lodge or accommodation, where you go in one of their open-sided vehicles with one of their guides as your captain. The advantage of this is that the guides know the National Park well, and often have a good inkling of where the wildlife might be. But remember, this isn’t a zoo; just enjoy being in this natural habitat and don’t get too caught up about ticking animals off a check list.
      • Organised game drives usually happen in the early morning and the late afternoon: it’s cooler at these times and you’ll see more animals. Meals and chill time at the lodge are timed around game drives.
    • If you’re happy to self-drive around the National Park in your own hired vehicle (as we were) one advantage is that you can choose your own timings, as long as it’s during daylight hours.
    • You can also visit the Painted Dog Conservation Centre, near Main Camp. Also visitors can have a cocktail or a meal at Hwange Safari Lodge while looking at the animals at their waterhole.
  • Transport: We self-drove from Bulawayo to Hwange, and the journey took us 3.5 hours. This stretch of road was cratered and ripped, requiring careful driving – the government needs to fix this intercity road. Word on the street (pun intended) is that they are in the process of improving it, but I’m not holding my breath.
    • If you don’t fancy self-driving, you can ask your Hwange accommodation to organise a road shuttle service for you. There is also a list of shuttle companies on my Coach/bus/shuttle transport in Zimbabwe article. Charter flights to Hwange are also available.
  • Accommodation: We stayed in a charming, treehouse-style lodge with a swimming pool and front-row seats to a waterhole. Our lodge was situated in the Sikumi Forest area, just outside Hwange National Park itself.
    • There are many accommodation options in Hwange, with the ZimParks self-catering lodges at the most affordable (but less equipped) end of the spectrum. Then there are safari specialists such as The Hide, African Bush Camps and Wilderness Safaris at the better-equipped end, providing your meals and game drives for you.
  • Top tip: You will need to pay National Parks fees to ZimParks for each day of your stay. This is paid at the Hwange Main Camp reception if self driving. Rates can be found on the ZimParks website here.

Side note: If you haven’t been to Victoria Falls: Definitely go there for 2 or 3 nights. You could do it as an additional stop, or do it instead of going to Matobo NP. Your lodge should be able to arrange transfers on request if needed. Otherwise it’s a (relatively short) couple of hours’ drive north-west from Hwange. It’s great to stay on the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls; it has more viewing points of the waterfall than Zambia. Read the Victoria Falls Travel Guide for details.

• Matobo National Park for 2 nights (or Victoria Falls if you haven’t been there)
  • Sights: Don’t miss World’s View, take a hike to visit some ancient rock art, and drive around to try spot some rhino. Special rhino tours are also available.
  • Transport: We self-drove from Hwange to Matobo National Park, near Bulawayo, and the journey took us 3 hours on the same road as before (slightly shorter duration than in the other direction, for some reason). Shuttle and other options are in the Hwange section above.
  • Accommodation: We stayed in a self-catering tented camp in Matobo NP. We bought food supplies from the supermarket at Zonkizizwe Shopping Centre in Bulawayo town. Suggestions for accommodation include: The Farmhouse Matopos, Big Cave, Rowallan Camp, Matobo Hills Lodge. Also look at the National Parks (Zimparks) accommodation in Matobo if on a budget.
  • Top tip: You will need to pay National Parks fees to ZimParks for each day of your stay. This can be paid at the main gate if self driving. Rates can be found on the ZimParks website here.
• Harare for 1 night and then fly home
  • We had some divine milkshakes and lunch at Three Monkeys Honeydew, and for dinner we were pretty predictable and went back to Mozambik Chisipite restaurant.

• Flights: Our flight to the UK departed Harare at 13:30. It was a British Airways flight via Johannesburg. The Harare to Johannesburg leg was with their South African partner, Airlink. My review of the Airlink flight and airports is in this blog post here.
  • A few easy hours in Johannesburg airport, then it was time to board an A380, arriving in London at 05:50 the following morning.

Highs and lows of Zimbabwe

• The highs: Seeing a herd of over 200 buffalo drink from the water hole in front of our Hwange lodge. The surreal experience of my children swimming in a pool while a family of elephant ambled along in the background. The sight of the red dust kicked into the air by my youngest in a way that reminded me of my own childhood.
• The lows: The roads in many areas of Zimbabwe just weren’t up to scratch. Granted, they’re better than other places in Africa, but this shouldn’t be the benchmark. Am I asking too much for the edges of the roads to look finished, not like a 2-year old has tried to paint a piece of spagetti? On the roads, the ‘Wild West’ mentality is especially apparent in many of the drivers.

Logistics for Zimbabwe self-drive

• Transport: If you’re used to driving in Africa, I’d recommend hiring a 4×4 vehicle in Zimbabwe (try: Zimbabwe Car Hire, 360 degree car hire, Fartrans DriveLink, Open Doors Harare, and Impala Car Rental).
  • Also see the article Driving in Zimbabwe.
  • If you don’t want to drive, contact your accommodation to book a shuttle/private driver for you.
  • I’ve also written articles on Shuttle transport in Zimbabwe and Internal flights in Zimbabwe which may be helpful.
  • We borrowed a 4×4 vehicle from family for our time in Zimbabwe. We’d brought our own car seats for the kids as hold luggage on our flight from the UK (and used them in South Africa, too).
• Accommodation: See the invididual holiday diaries of the locations above.
• Cash: See the Money in Zimbabwe section for info on currency and spending.
  • My rule of thumb is to book and pay for as much as possible in advance, such as accommodation. Then budget for things that will need cash, such as visas, National Parks fees, meals out and tips.
• Costs: If you’d like to see a breakdown of the costs from our own holiday, this can be purchased in my Ultimate Trip Planning Kit.
• What to pack for Zimbabwe: I’ve dedicated a whole article to items you might need in Zimbabwe and southern Africa – see What to pack for a Zimbabwe holiday.
• Supplies: We bought our groceries and fuel in the cities and towns on the route. Hwange was the only remote destination, so we were able to get everything we needed in Bulawayo beforehand.

Read the next post of this holiday diary series: Our favourite spots in Harare.

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