Five reasons to go to Zimbabwe

21.07.2023 - 08:01 / roughguides.com

It’s been a tragedy for the people of Zimbabwe that the country has garnered so much unfavourable publicity over the last ten years, with headlines ranging from its controversial land redistribution programme to the ensuing collapsed economy.

In the last few years, however, it has made a steady recovery following a new currency, a fairer power-sharing government, international airlines returning to its capital and the EU having long lifted its travel warnings. This upturn has helped sow the seeds of a tourist renaissance, with travellers now returning in increasing numbers to this reborn destination, rejuvenating Zimbabwe’s tourism industry. Here are five reasons why you should join them.

One feature of the country less affected by any of the previous strife is, thankfully, its vast expanses of pristine remote wilderness, which remain some of the greatest game-viewing locations in Southern Africa. Following the paucity of tourist development throughout the noughties, they’re as untouched and secluded as you could hope for – you won’t see an entire convoy of jeeps following animals as you might in other African parks.

Wildlife in Hwange © Shutterstock

Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest game reserve (roughly 15,000 square kilometres), is home to more than 400 bird species and a hundred species of mammal, including thousands of elephants who trudge a migratory route from here to neighbouring Botswana every year. Meanwhile, the second-largest reserveGonarezhou (meaning “elephant's tusk” in the local Shona language) forms part of the even bigger Greater Limpopo ecosystem incorporating Kruger in South Africa and Mozambique's Limpopo, between which animals can move freely.

Between the two reserves you are virtually guaranteed intimate game-drive encounters with zebra, giraffe, buffalo, baboons and elephants by the hundred. Only the sneakier big cats may elude your camera lens if you’re unlucky.

Alongside the country’s rich wildlife is an equally rich historical culture, epitomised by its greatest architectural treasure: the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe in Masvingo.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site, after which the nation was named, was the royal capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and has been inhabited for over a thousand years. Covering an area of nearly 2000 acres it offers photography opportunities that could fill a whole memory card, particularly its lofty monolithic acropolis which can be seen for miles, and the elliptical Great Enclosure with its unique conical tower monument.

You can spend a whole day wandering amid its ruins, climbing the acropolis and hanging out with the resident baboons. And again, with few tourists on the scene (compared to Zimbabwe’s 90s boom