Premium Zimbabwe: The Ultimate Bird and Mammal Safari

Zimbabwe is an absolutely fabulous country – scenically wonderful, with very friendly people fluent in English and a long history in wilderness conservation that has led to the establishment of a number of excellent and highly biodiverse reserves and national parks throughout the country. Zimbabwe has a good road network, and it also holds the distinction of being one of the few African countries in which you can see a great deal without the use of a 4×4 vehicle. With an improving political leadership and the introduction of US Dollars as tender throughout the country, Zimbabwe is once again becoming a very popular destination to birders and travelers alike. This comfortable 14-day tour is one of our premium options – with a split focus on the birds and mammals occurring throughout the western half of the country, ensuring we have adequate time at each destination, and offering you an exclusive safari experience in some of the country’s premier reserves.

The localized Boulder Chat is virtually endemic to Zimbabwe and is a major birding target on this tour.

This tour begins at one of the foremost attractions of the country, Victoria Falls. As one of the seven natural wonders of the world, these incredible falls are indicative of what is to come as we journey through Zimbabwe, with excellent birding and wildlife viewing to be had in stunning surroundings. A visit to one of Africa’s great game parks follows, with Hwange National Park next on the cards. This massive park (larger than the European country of Belgium) hosts the full spectrum of Africa’s plains game, including ‘The Big 5’, along with a great many special birds, and offers one of the best African Safari experiences out there! We next visit the rocky outcrops of the Matobo National Park, where birding is our primary focus and we’ll look for high concentrations of raptors (including the highest density of the magnificent Verreaux’s Eagle on the planet), and others such as the near-endemic Boulder Chat.

Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is where this tour begins.

A stop in the country’s capital city, Harare, gives us a break in transiting to what is our end point of the tour, the famous Mana Pools National Park, while also serving as a birding stop, as we visit various miombo-woodland birding areas around the city – this is a unique south-central African restricted woodland that has a whole host of bird species restricted solely to this habitat and is of significant importance! Mana Pools National Park is a lush reserve at the bottom of the breathtaking Zambezi River Valley (here, the Middle/Lower Zambezi, one of Africa’s biggest rivers, is bounded by steep and immense escarpments on either side) and is full of excellent birds, including the localized Lilian’s Lovebird, and a wide spectrum of mammals. Indeed, Mana Pools is a famous predator viewing area, with high concentrations of Lion, Leopard and the rare African Wild Dog all serving as a precursor to the wonders that await.