Tips 👏
- Kasane is fairly developed, with lots of lodges around and a brand-new airport.
- Victoria falls is a very very touristic city, with lots adventure activites, similar to Queenstown in NZ.
- Allow some time to pass border between countries since a bit chaotic (around one hour).
🏠 Accommodation
We stayed at Thebe River Camping in Kasane which was fully equiped with restaurant, shower and such. We stayed in the Shearwater Explorers Village in Victoria Falls, a five star resort with swimming pool at which two nights would have been fantastic (perfect place to relax).
🚲 Getting there
We first drove from Savuti to Kasane in about 4 hours (most of the road is normal road making it faster). From Kasane to Victoria Falls it’s about 1h30 hour drive discounting crossing the border.
⏱ Duration
We stayed one night in Kasane and one in Victoria Falls, but two nights in Victoria falls would have been perfect to relax before taking our flight back.
Road to Kasane 🚗
As always, we started the drive very early. After leaving the camp, Rock did a little game drive around to see some wilderbeast and giraffes drinking before heading north east to Kasane. After a quick coffee break around 10:30AM and seeing some baboons and elephants, we realized we were behind schedule so we went non-stop to Kasane.
After a couple of hours in the sandy roads, we arrived back on normal roads around 1PM in the little village of Kachikau, natal place of Partner (London as called by the locals). From there, we went very fast and arrived at the Kasane camping around 2PM.
On the way, the back-up car operated by Partner carrying all the camping gear had some issue, the wheel chassis broke. Partner managed to sort out a DIY magic fix with some road, stating that the car will reach and it did!
Cruise on the Chobe River 🚤
Post arrival, we ate a super quick lunch and made our way to the pier for the sunset boat cruise of 3h on the Chobe river. Rock sorted us a cooler with lots of beers, drinks and snacks which was amazing to enjoy the boozy cruise.
We boarded the boat with another 30 tourists (weird to see people again), and made our way very slowly on the river while having our drinks. Make sure to bring solar cream and hats! During the cruise, we could observe Namibia on the other side of the river, while gazing on elephants, crocodiles, impalas and buffalos.
All in one, it was very beautiful, but after our 10 days safari it was hard to appreciate properly. We would recommend but only mildly. After giving a tip, we got picked-up back at the pier to the camping where we had dinner at the restaurant and want to bed early.
Crossing Zimbabwe border 🇿🇼
After waking up at 5AM, we packed our things and made our way to the border. We queued about 45 minutes on the Zimbabwe entrance in a fairly chaotic situation with lots of tourist and paid the 30USD cash visa price. Once our passport were stamped, we left Partner in Botswana and boarded a minivan with Rock that brought us to Victoria falls in 50 mins.
All in one it was very straight-forward, and Rock our guide was with us all the way. Only allow extra time and leave early since big bus of tourist increase dramatically waiting time.
Victoria Falls 💦
Once arrived in the town, the private minivan dropped us at our hotel where we checked-in and left our luggages waiting for the room to be ready. Around 10AM we walked down 10 minutes to the falls with Rock for a guided tour. Make sure to take your passport with you as it is required to enter the falls park.
We spent around 2h admiring the beauty of the falls divided in 16 different viewpoints. Simply amazing and a must do while in southern Africa. It was dry season but still very impressive! The last viewpoint is on the bridge connecting to Zambia, where it is possible to do bungee jumping too. If you go to Zambia, you can also do a bath on top of the falls that look very dangerous.
There was lots of activities available, including boat and helicopter, but at this time we just wanted to relax before our early flight the next day. So we simply went back to the hotel, enjoy our room and the pool and relaxed all the afternoon. We went to dinner in a nearby restaurant the Three Monkeys, before packing and go to be early.
Note that we also saw an old-fashion train offering trips with dinner nearby that looked very cool, something to consider if that’s your thing!
Back to Botswana 🇧🇼
Our flight was leaving from Kasane to bring us to Johannesburg, before heading back to London. A better commute would have been to leave directly from Victoria Falls since there’s an international airport, but it was not possible with British Airways at the time.
After an early wake-up, we met back Rock and our driver that brought us back to the Botswana border. We passed it very early to avoid queues, and felt it was much faster on this way. We reached Kasane and met back our safari car with Partner around 10AM, and made our way to the airport. Since we had extra time, Rock and Partner took an alternative road to do a last super quick game drive to see few impalas and elephants, before we reached the airport 2h30 in advance.
We said our good-byes, gave our tips for a job super well done, and boarded our flight back to London. What an incredible journey it has been, one we’ll do again someday in the future.
Hope this was helpful, you can ask us any questions on Instagram.