High End Travel Expert Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is a mile-wide curtain of water dropping 350 feet into the Batoka Gorge, and the sound of it can be heard from Livingstone and from the Zimbabwean town of Victoria Falls before either is visible. The falls form the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and shape the tourism identity of both towns that grew up around them. David Livingstone reached the falls in 1855 and named them for Queen Victoria, and the modern luxury travel industry surrounding them has developed on both sides of the Zambezi over the past century and a half.

The falls are typically not the whole trip. Travelers arriving at Victoria Falls are usually on the way to or from a Chobe safari in Botswana or a Lower Zambezi safari further downstream, and some continue to a South Luangwa extension deeper into Zambia. The town itself supports a range of luxury properties designed around the surrounding wildlife and river experiences, from the historic Victoria Falls Hotel on the Zimbabwean side to Tongabezi and Royal Chundu on the Zambian side.

For discerning travelers seeking a high end travel expert for Victoria Falls, Benarrivati Africa structures the falls as one leg of a broader itinerary that draws on the surrounding safari regions. The firm’s travel designers coordinate the border crossings and the internal transfers along with the specific property choices that shape how the falls region actually fits into the traveler’s broader Africa trip.

The Two Sides of the Falls and Their Surrounding Regions

The Zimbabwean side of the falls holds the majority of the frontal viewing angles, including the celebrated Devil’s Cataract and the western trails through the Victoria Falls rainforest. The town of Victoria Falls sits directly adjacent to the falls national park, with the Victoria Falls Hotel (opened in 1904) representing the most-storied luxury property in the region. Rates on the Zimbabwean side have historically been more accessible than the Zambian equivalent, and the town’s small size makes it easy to combine multiple experiences within a short stay. From the Zimbabwean side, extensions into Hwange National Park deliver some of the largest elephant populations in Africa and support the Somalisa camps and other luxury safari properties.

The Zambian side operates from Livingstone, a larger town about 10 miles from the falls proper. The Zambian viewing angles include the Knife Edge Bridge and the swimming at Devil’s Pool during the low-water season from September to December, when the reduced flow allows swimmers to approach the very edge of the falls. Luxury properties on the Zambian side include Tongabezi and Royal Chundu upriver from the falls along the Zambezi, both offering direct river experiences that the Zimbabwean-side properties don’t reproduce. From Livingstone, extensions into the Lower Zambezi National Park or northward to South Luangwa give the falls stop a natural safari counterpart. Benarrivati Africa’s travel designers coordinate these two-country routings, including the border crossings that connect the falls region’s various pieces.

Design a High End Victoria Falls Trip

The best Victoria Falls trips are structured so that the falls themselves are one of several defining experiences rather than the whole of the itinerary. Reach the Benarrivati Africa team through the Plan Your Trip section of benarrivatiafrica.com, and a travel designer will follow up to open the planning conversation about which safari region and which side of the falls the trip should draw from.