Zimbabwe: reviews from our travellers

"Thanks for all help, suggestions and fast follow up, even when we had some challenges the night before we left Amsterdam due to flight changes the next day from Johannesburg to Windhoek.

Great you were thinking along how to beat that challenge and giving alternatives for accommodation if we could not make it to our first stop. Thanks Tracy!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
Inform your guests esp if they are used to safaris in other countries than Botswana, eg South Africa that the experience can be different. Im not talking about the game viewing which is obvious off course but the experience in the lodges. In South Africa you often for the same amount of money get more value (luxury, guest experience)" Read full review: 22 nights in Africa; 14 on a Botswana safari

"We loved the trip (we knew we would because my sister and her husband enjoyed it so much two years ago) Good variety of experiences.

Wonderful country, lovely people, excellent guides" Read full review: 27 nights in Africa; 12 on a Namibia trip

"Despite the inauspicious start in Harare Airport, all other aspects of the trip went very smoothly and overall it exceeded our expectations and we will undoubtedly book another trip with Expert Africa in the future.
We are big fans of Zambia because of the excellent walking but we liked the combination of walk and drives we experienced in Zimbabwe.
Mana Pools was busier than Hwange, which was very quiet. In Mana Pools, it is strange to see people walking in the park without guides. In Hwange it was wonderful to be away from tsetses and mosquitos." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 15 on a Zimbabwe safari

"We are experienced safari goers. We expected a remote adventure and that is what we got in Hwange National Park.

An added bonus was that our guide, Andrew Dalziel, was with us from start to finish and for all of our days in the park, there was just him and us - which made it a very personal trip.
His knowledge and humour was fantastic, we enjoyed our daily bush walks probably covering around 25km in the six days, and we learnt new things everyday. We got very close to elephants on a number of occasions through Andrew’s skills and he was ably assisted by Felix, one of the very long serving camp staff.

Although the animals are skittish in this park, this did not detract from our overall enjoyment. We also spotted over 135 different birds in just six days, with the most varied number of raptors we have seen in an area for a long time. There has been a lot of work undertaken on renovating water pumps in the park, with lots of new solar pumps. This means that all animals have ready access to water in most areas, which does lead to it being harder to spot the animals but certainly didn’t make our experience any less enjoyable.

The camp staff were fantastic - both in the bush camp and during the fly camping. You did not feel that anything was too much trouble at any point, whether it be breakfast in the morning, hot water for a shower or coffee after dinner. Guides and camp staff worked well together and it almost felt like being part of a family for six days.

We did not expect a guide to ourselves for the trip - as we were the only guests for the first two nights, and the only guests going fly camping, this may well have been the reason why. We felt extremely lucky to have Andrew with us - albeit that we were surprised not to have the guides mentioned on Expert Africa’s pages - very much our gain, just not what we had expected.

In many respects, this has been one of our most enjoyable safaris - we may not have seen as many mammals as in other places but the variety of birds, ability to get so close to nature and quality of guiding, alongside the friendliness of the camp staff, all made for an excellent trip. We would strongly recommend this. We feel sure any site chosen for the new camp will be as good because the people will make it so." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zimbabwe safari

"We had a fantastic holiday in Namibia, Victoria Falls and Botswana. It took alot of planning with the help of Megan but it ended up being even better than we thought it would be.

We had lots of variety but I think we would say the private mobile safari was our favourite thing. When we started our holiday we thought a month away was a long holiday but we didn't once feel it was too long, probably just right really. We saw such amazing things. Megan was great when we had some money stolen out of the safe in one of the lodges, fortunately we didn't need to take her up on her offer to get cash to us.

We found Megan to be very knowledgeable and she always listened to our requests. Thank you for making this a dream holiday." Read full review: 31 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"A great holiday would recommend Expert Africa to other travellers." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 5 on a Botswana safari

"A very special trip with memories that will last for a very long time. Most of the specific comments are in the individual review sections so it is only worth adding that overall the variety of the two camps was very important and the order that we did them was great. At Sable Alley we were very comfortable and loved the setting, staff and the huge quantity and variety of wildlife. Little Vumbura offered a different setting with a different experience." Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 6 on a Botswana safari

"The trip worked perfectly so thank you Expert Africa for organising." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 8 on a Botswana safari

"Tracy Lederer did an amazing job advising and facilitating our wonderful safari trip to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We rave about Expert Africa to everyone - this is our second time travelling with you and you have been superb on every aspect of our trip both times.

From the subtle differences between lodges regarding cost, solitude (which we love) and what we could expect to see, to the painful rearranging of flights when airlines change schedules, every element has been handled by Tracy with true expertise, professionalism, insight and smart advice. Thank you so much!

We travelled with 4 American friends and sorting out bill payments was very easy for all of us. Two of them had not been on safari before, one of them celebrating their 60th birthday while we were away, and it could not have been a better experience. The magical surprise birthday braai at Motswiri was a highlight, along with all the animal and bird sightings under the expert guiding of Andrew Harkness on our mobile safari (thanks for the spot-on recommendation, Tracy!)

Altogether a trip of lifetime - thank you everyone involved.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Happy with everything thanks." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 5 on a Botswana safari

"We had a great holiday and it fully met our expectations." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 10 on a Zambia safari