Victoria Falls – Best time to Visit
Most of our clients now stay on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls and so view the falls from the Zambian side. However in the last few months the new Zambian power plant has taken a fair bit of water from the Zambian Falls. Though this is a proverbial drop in the ocean during the high water months of February to August when the Falls are at their most impressive, it does make an impact as the dry season progresses as the volume of water over the Falls continues to drop until the end of the year.
Clients heading to the Falls between late September and December need to be aware that viewing the Falls from the traditional viewpoints may not be as awe-inspiring as they might have hoped.
What should clients do?
If seeing Victoria Falls is one of the key highlights of your Southern African safari, then I would recommend planning your safari to co-incide with the best time for Victoria Falls which is generally May to August. At this time the rains have stopped which means that the Falls are not hidden behind clouds of mist and spray. But the volume of water over Victoria Falls remains high and your photographs will be spectacular. This time of year is also the best time of the year for game-viewing in the rest of Zambia and neighbouring Botswana.
However game-viewing remains superb and even improves into September and October and so many people choose to visit Victoria Falls later into the dry season. What advice do I have in this case? I recommend three options
1) Supplement your visit to the viewpoints of Victoria Falls with either a helicopter flight, the so called Flight of Angels, or even a microlite flight for the more intrepid. You will fly over the whole breadth of the Falls, over 1km in length.
2) Consider staying at one of the country lodges which lie a little upstream from Victoria Falls. The advantage of these lodges is that they offer a fully inclusive experience with a tour of Victoria Falls, sunset boat cruises, game drives in the National Park, canoeing, village visits all included in the price. What this means in practice is that you enjoy all of the many aspects of the Zambezi River including, but not limited to, Victoria Falls itself. Personally I enjoyed canoeing on the Zambezi River as much as viewing the actual Falls.
3) Finally you can visit the Falls from the Zimbabwean side. You can either stay in Victoria Falls town at one of their excellent hotels or you can purchase a Zimbabwean visa and walk across the border to view the Falls from the other side of the Zambezi. This is a relatively expensive exercise especially if you are from the UK (as the visa costs more for certain nationalities) but worth considering.