Botswana and Zimbabwe

March 2025 – I do a yearly trip with my parents and this year I went on safari in Botswana and Zimbabwe. And saw the amazing Viktoria Falls on the way.

When traveling, I most often do all the planning myself, this time I had Eva Hellemose from Fair Track Safari do all the planning for the three of us. She made a fantastic trip for us with stays at Hideaways Mankwe Tented Retreat (Okavango Delta in Botswana), Illala Lodge (Viktoria Falls) and Nantwich Lodge (Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe). And with amazing safaris in the outskirts of the Okavango Delta of Botswana and in the Hwange National Park of Zimbabwe. Our planned departure was in the evening of March 11th, but when our very fist flight from Kastrup to Frankfurt got cancelled after two hours of waiting in the airplane, she moved the entire trip one day – including hotel bookings, all transfers, all tours, local flight in Botswana and our return tickets. Next day there was no delay and the rest of the trip went nicely without further delays or problems of any sort.

First three days we stayed at Mankwe Tented Retreat two hours of drive from Maun. We saw the first couple of elephants crossing the gravel road in front of us even before arriving at the hotel.

We had two full days of safari in the outskirts of the Okavango Delta. We saw an abundance of wildlife from our open safari jeep, the most amazing animals being a lion family of four female lions and three cubs, and the male lion some hundreds meters away.

Some of the other animals we saw around the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

This trip was a family vacation with my parents, I think we all had a great time…

After three days exploring the Okavango Delta we continued towards or next stop, two days at the mighty Viktoria Falls on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. A small airplane took us from Khwai Airstrip to Kasane airport and two different transfers took us to the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe and further to our hotel at Viktoria Falls. As I am a pilot myself I got to sit next to the pilot. It turned out that I had way more hours than the pilot, but he did a very nice job flying the airplane.

We had two days at Viktoria Falls. After arriving at our hotel I walked the falls myself while my parents rested. The next morning we all did the tour together so I ended up doing the walking tour along the falls twice – first time in perfect weather with rainbows over the falls on every picture, the second time the sky was cloudy and the wind made us soaking wet from all the moisture coming up from the gauge below the falls.

My pictures from my first day at Viktoria Falls. Blue sky and rainbows 🙂

My pictures from the second day at Viktoria Falls, this time with my parents…

The last four days of out trip was spent at Nantwich Lodge in Hwange National Park. This national park is Zimbabwes biggest and oldest national park with an area of almost 15,000 square kilometers (almost 5,700 square miles). March isn’t exactly high season as tall grass and plenty of water holes makes the animals hard to find and spot. But we ended up seeing lions on two of our safari trips. And a lot of other amazing animals.

My lion pictures from Hwange National Park…