Is Zimbabwe the next luxury hotspot?

No. You’re welcome. (I do like to keep Betteridge’s Law alive and well around here.)

As a luxury-first travel agency, there are more than a few countries I haven’t got around to. Even in Africa, which is very much our thing. It’s not that these countries have been exiled to the naughty step, it’s just that some of them don’t offer the quality of luxury that makes them interesting. Zimbabwe is one of those.

Yes, it’s had Singita Pamushana for years. But when you’ve got new lodges opening left, right and centre across South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Botswana, it always felt like something to do later. You know, “one day,” like that gym membership you haven’t used since 2017.

But now that I’ve nearly run out of luxury exclusive-use villas and high-end lodges across the continent (pray for me, these are dark times), I suppose you could say I’m more open-minded. Ok, I’m bored.  You got me.  So the adventure is starting to outweigh the accommodation. Don’t worry, I’m not about to go full BBC cameraman and live up a tree for six weeks waiting for a rare moth to blink. We’ll always focus on luxury. But you can absolutely do luxury with a sprinkle of adventure.

And it wasn’t like the places I was staying in Zimbabwe were pitching themselves against a Premier Inn.  We’re talking Singita.  Great Plains.  Molori, a new entrant with the most expensive property in Mara Pools.  And Matetsi, widely considered the best luxury property in Victoria Falls.

But I should also be honest.  This entire trip actually started off wanting to fly a drone around to film African wild dogs, after seeing it on a Nat Geo documentary.  Turns out, much harder to get permission than you would imagine.  But I have somewhere that’s come through on that – stay tuned.  So my wild dog obsession started this trip.  And boy did they come through.  In fact, all the wildlife came through.  Even the landscape, as Victoria Falls was spectacular.

Here’s how the journey played out.

The trip

Ten days, start to finish. First up: getting to Johannesburg. I hadn’t flown British Airways on that route in years and completely forgot how good the lounge is… if you’re flying First and have access to the dining room. If not, it’s still a decent lounge (for BA), just come 5pm, packed, noisy, and vaguely post-apocalyptic.

Anyway, landed and made a dash for the Fireblade terminal to wait for the scheduled flight to Singita Pamushana.  Post Singita, I took a private charter to Tembo Plains. The alternative was a logistical hostage situation. I would’ve had to stay an extra night at Pamushana, then fly back to Johannesburg, then take an international flight to Victoria Falls (about two hours), then another flight to Mana Pools (another two hours), and then a car journey.  Plus all the wasted time in between. In real terms, that’s a full day of your life you’ll never get back.  Even though having stayed an extra night and taking a scheduled flight would have been cheaper.

Instead, I was driven 15 minutes to the local airstrip, hopped on a plane, and landed roughly 50 minutes from Tembo Plains. They’re about to open a new airstrip closer to camp that’ll cut that down to under 30 minutes. From there, it was a three-hour drive to Molori Mashuma in Mana Pools. Then finally, a two-hour flight to Victoria Falls, followed by a one-hour drive to Matetsi.

It sounds exhausting written out like this, but, like a drunk texting his ex at 2am, I’ve already forgotten the pain. I’m heading back to Johannesburg in a few days for yet another safari.

The luxury market

The service was more or less what I expected—plenty of that signature African warmth and charm, but still noticeably behind the competition. You can feel the weight of history when you speak to the staff. There’s this underlying frustration with what their government has done to the country. Zimbabwe has all the natural resources in the world, but tourism here feels like something that’s constantly being rebooted, then crash-landed, only to be rebooted again. But it is getting better.

Tembo Plains, in terms of hard product, is right up there with their camps in Kenya or Botswana—yet at half the price. Singita Pamushana is excellent, as expected. Molori needs a lot of work. And Matetsi… should probably be repurposed as staff housing. But across the board—and I say this excluding Singita—the service needs improvement. You can feel the potential, but it’s still behind where it needs to be to properly compete and show tourists it’s really worth the detour.

The experience

It’s always hard to judge an entire country based on a single trip, especially in the lull just before peak season. Some of the individual wildlife moments were among the most extraordinary I’ve ever had. And yet, I was surprised by how often there was simply nothing around. It didn’t always feel like a safari. Sometimes, it just felt like a drive. A long, warm, bumpy drive with no plot.

There’s a real need for more focused rewilding and conservation efforts here. It feels like a country still rebuilding.

But the highs were high. Every other safari I’ve been on, the goal is to keep you alive. Here, it’s more “see those lions? Bet you couldn’t slap them.” Next thing you know, you’re tracking lions on foot, or wild dogs are trying to taste-test your toes, or you’re standing two metres from an elephant that has a bit of a murdery expression on its face.

It’s bizarre to describe it as “boring” when so much of it was objectively extraordinary. If you’d told me at the start of the trip I’d experience all this, I’d have bitten your hand off, much like that wild dog tried to do with my foot. But for every moment of magic, there were long stretches of nothing. And I mean nothing.

There were a few moments where I wondered if Zimbabwe itself was trying to kill me. The wild dog encounter. The elephant casually browsing outside my room. The pilots sitting behind me mid-flight casually noting that it looked like fuel was leaking from the engine. That’s not something you want to overhear at 9,000 feet.

By the time I got to Victoria Falls, I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to keep tempting fate. One of the main viewpoints is called “Danger Point”, a wet, slippery outcrop with no barriers, directly above a sheer drop. It’s May, peak water level season. No, I’m good, thanks.  I may give the impression of someone that has lost all cognitive function, but the braincells that go “being alive, it’s alright, isn’t it?” are still functioning.

Conclusion

There’s still a long way to go in Zimbabwe. For our clientele, I’d only recommend it if you’ve already done the major players: South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya. Or if your idea of a good time involves a genuine risk of being mauled by something.  As it is mine.  So I’ll definitely go back at some point.

And if nothing else, this trip has made me more curious about places like Namibia and Uganda, where the luxury market is still in its awkward early stages.  Perhaps that’s half the fun – somewhere with half the health and safety procedures.