The falls take a morning. The rest of the week is the Zambezi.
Which helicopter loop is long enough to see the whole gorge. What a Chobe day trip really costs by the time lunch is in. Whether the sunset cruise with dinner beats the one with a bar. Reviews of every tour you can book in Zimbabwe.
A walk through the rainforest, a helicopter loop, a deck at sunset, Chobe by boat.
The four bookings a first week at Victoria Falls hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
- 01The first morningPrivate Guided Tour of the WaterfallsThe Zimbabwe side keeps three quarters of the curtain in view. Go early, before the spray haze burns off the gorge.
02The whole pictureHelicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 12-13 minutes FlightTwelve minutes over the falls, the gorges and the Zambezi bends. The only angle that shows how big the thing actually is.
03The last two hours2-Hour Luxury Zambezi River Sunset CruiseUpstream above the lip, hippos surfacing, drinks poured until the light goes. Book the smaller boat.
04The day acrossChobe National Park Day Trip with LunchInto Botswana at dawn for elephant herds on the Chobe floodplain, back over the bridge by dinner.
Nearly every tour here leaves from Victoria Falls town.
One small town, a river, a gorge and two national parks within reach. The choice is not where to go, it is what kind of day you want: on foot at the falls, in a helicopter, in a boat, in a game vehicle, over the border to Chobe, or on a rope above the gorge.
Zimbabwe puts three different kinds of wildlife day inside one hour of town.
A cross-border run to the Chobe floodplain, a dawn drive in Zambezi National Park, or the long haul south to Hwange and its waterholes. Three shapes of day, what it costs to get on each one, and how far you travel for it.
Above the lip the river is flat and full of hippo. Below it, grade five.
The same water does two jobs here. Upstream of the falls it carries sunset cruises past pods and fish eagles. Downstream, in the gorge, it becomes some of the most serious commercial rafting anywhere, runnable low-water from roughly August to December.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Zimbabwe.
Every Zimbabwean tour we have reviewed →Helicopters, dinner cruises and the Chobe run. These are the tours with the longest queues behind them, and what earns each one its slot.
1
Helicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 12-13 minutes Flight
You’ll fly from a helipad in Zambezi National Park over Victoria Falls, the Batoka Gorge, and the Zambezi River. Chikopokopo Helicopters provides hotel pickup, a safety briefing, and bubble-window views. The helicopter circles the Falls from several angles, with a total tour time of about 45 minutes.
From · $135
Read our review →
2
Dinner Cruise on the Zambezi River
from $110
3
Chobe National Park Day Trip with Lunch
from $170
4
Dinner Cruise on the Zambezi River
from $92
5
Boma Dinner and Drum Show
from $60
6
Helicopter Tour with Hotel Pickup
from $180
7
2-Hour Luxury Zambezi River Sunset Cruise
from $69
8
Helicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 25-27 Minutes Game
from $265
Everything at Victoria Falls that involves stepping off something.
A 111-metre bungee off the 1905 bridge, the gorge swing next to it, a zip line across the chasm and a canopy tour through the rainforest above. All of it inside two kilometres of the falls, all of it running whatever the river is doing.
Compare the jumps →
What a day at Victoria Falls actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The walk through the rainforest and the flight over it sit at opposite ends of the same day.
Guided walks at the falls, town and village tours, the bridge, the shorter transfers.
Sunset cruises, the Boma, game drives in Zambezi National Park, the short helicopter loop.
Chobe day trips, the long helicopter flight, rafting with the climb out, private guiding.
Three things that only happen at Victoria Falls.
Waterfalls and game parks exist all over the continent. A helicopter loop over a mile-wide curtain, a drum show that starts when the fire is lit, and a bridge you jump off between two countries do not.
The Flight of Angels
The falls are 1,700 metres wide and drop into a zigzag of old gorges you cannot read from the ground at all. The short loop gives you the curtain and the first gorge; the longer one carries on over the Zambezi bends and the national park, where elephant show up on the sandbanks. Doors-off seats are allocated by weight, so ask at booking rather than at the pad.
- 1Helicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 12-13 minutes Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,391 reviews
- 2Helicopter Tour with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 371 reviews
- 3Helicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 25-27 Minutes Game★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 286 reviews
The Boma
A thatched boma outside town where the evening runs on courses and performance in equal measure: warthog and game meats, a witch doctor working the tables, and a drumming circle at the end where everyone is handed an instrument. The mopane worm is genuinely offered, and genuinely optional. Book the night you land, before the fatigue sets in.
- 1Boma Dinner and Drum Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 415 reviews
- 2The Boma Dinner and Drum Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 43 reviews
- 3The Boma Dinner and Drum Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 27 reviews
The Gorge Jumps
The Victoria Falls Bridge was built in Darlington, shipped in pieces and bolted together over the second gorge in 1905. The bungee goes off the middle of it, 111 metres to the river, with the gorge swing and the zip line strung across the same chasm. You cross into no-man's-land between the Zimbabwean and Zambian posts to reach the deck, passport in hand.
- 1Gorge Swing (Zimbabwe)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 38 reviews
- 2Victoria Falls Bridge Bungee Jump★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 18 reviews
- 3Flying Fox (Zimbabwe)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 17 reviews
Four Zimbabwean bookings that will not wait.
Most of this town can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on seat counts, border posts and a river that sets its own timetable.
- 01Helicopter Scenic Flight over Victoria Falls 12-13 minutes FlightFour or five seats per flight and a weight-balanced manifest. The dawn and late-afternoon slots, the good light, go first.
- 02Chobe National Park Day Trip with LunchA full day out of the country with a Botswana entry each way. Numbers are fixed at the boat and the vehicle, so the day sells out well before the hotel desk admits it.
- 03Boma Dinner and Drum ShowOne sitting a night in one boma. In high season the tables are taken days ahead, and there is no second service.
- 04Zambezi River Class IV-V White-Water Rafting from Victoria FallsThe gorge is only run at low water, roughly August to December. Outside that window the rapids are drowned and the trips do not go.
When the Zambezi is in flood you see spray, not the falls.
The river peaks around March and April. From the rainforest path you get soaked and photograph a wall of mist; from the air you get the whole thing. By September the eastern cataract can be dry rock, the gorge opens up, and rafting, swimming spots and the gorge walks all come into their own. Plan the week around which river you are getting.
Dinner here comes with a fire, a drum or a river under it.
The evening is a booking of its own in Victoria Falls. A four-course boma with drumming, a dinner cruise upstream, high tea on a colonial terrace, or a table at the gorge edge as the bats come out.
- 1Dinner Cruise on the Zambezi Riverfrom $110
- 2Dinner Cruise on the Zambezi Riverfrom $92
- 3Boma Dinner and Drum Showfrom $60
By place — the falls, the parks, the old south
By kind of day — air, water, game vehicle or fire
Falls, gorge, river, Chobe, then south to the parks and the ruins.
The falls
The bridge
The ZambeziThe newest Zimbabwean tour reviews.
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