The Zambezi is over a kilometre and a half wide when it reaches the falls and drops into a series of zigzag gorges that the river has cut back over the millennia. The Zimbabwean side gives you the panorama: a path through a spray-fed rainforest along the edge of the gorge opposite the falls, with sixteen viewpoints from the Devil's Cataract to Danger Point and the Main Falls thundering a hundred metres away. In high water you are soaked through; raincoats are hired at the gate and cameras need a dry bag.
The Zambian side puts you on top. The Knife-Edge Bridge walks you out over the gorge into the spray of the Eastern Cataract, and Livingstone Island — reached by boat from the Royal Livingstone hotel in the low-water months — is where you swim in the Devil's Pool, a rock basin on the very lip of the falls with a 100-metre drop beyond a natural ledge. It is booked weeks ahead and runs roughly August to January when the river allows.
A KAZA UniVisa, bought on arrival at either airport or border, covers both Zimbabwe and Zambia for thirty days and lets you cross the Victoria Falls Bridge freely — the bridge itself is the bungee-jump site and the best view of the gorge. Beyond the water: helicopter 'Flight of Angels' over the falls, sunset cruises above the lip on the wide, hippo-filled upper river, white-water rafting in the gorges at low water, and a day trip to Botswana's Chobe National Park, an hour's drive, for elephants in numbers no photograph prepares you for.
Stay on either side: Victoria Falls town has the grand old Victoria Falls Hotel with the bridge in the garden view; Livingstone has lodges on the river with the spray on the horizon. Airport and border transfers are short and best pre-booked with a licensed operator; the network's partners cover both airports.
Three things to get right
- See both sides; buy the KAZA UniVisa on arrival.
- High water (Feb–May) for the full curtain; low water (Aug–Dec) for Devil's Pool.
- Add Chobe for a day — it is an hour away.
