Hwange National Park

Amazing hospitality and great safari experiences with great guides who are very knowledgeable.

We were lucky enough on our first game drive, to be able to follow a lion as it tracked, caught, and killed an injured baby buffalo. Also, there were not very many jeeps underway at the Park, so we often had the feeling that we had the Park to ourselves. Even during the lion kill, there were only a maximum of about 5 jeeps there, all distanced far enough apart that everyone could see but it wasn't crowded. It didn't feel at all like an assembly line game drive, which is a feeling I have had at some of the really well-known game parks in Africa, where there can be a big line of jeeps waiting to see something and no jeep can stay and watch for very long. During our game drives at Hwange, we could take our time looking and photographing.

Would've given Hwange 5 stars, however we did not see any elephants which was highly disappointing since the park is known for the highest elephant population in Africa. What we did see was lovely, but the park is very wooded (not a lot of open space to see animals), so we had many kms of drive where we saw nothing but trees/bushes.

Still a great experience and worth a visist!

Wonderful amount of wildlife around, many birds and animal species.
Roads/tracks not good, lot of rubbish on roadsieds.

Loved the scenery and abundant wildlife. It was a great time to be there as there many more animals than people.

Hwange is a vast area and requires patience and travel over great distances to see the wildlife. There is no fencing so the animals wonder over large areas.
We prefer to get away from volumes of commercial tourism so Hwange is the ideal place for us. We love it and will return as often as we can.

Huge herds of animals ... would have wanted to see rhinos though...

Hwange was amazing! Not at all crowded, and got to see lots of wildlife.

Beautiful park, few people, and lots of animals

Hwange is a beautiful park and the safari experience feels quite unique because there are very few cars/ people. It was usually just our car and at times one researcher. The scenery is gorgeous and I saw lots of elephants, anthelopes, birds of all kinds, zebras, giraffes, and a male lion. I feel you need a full day safari to go deep into the park and actually see the animals.

Almost perfect but....

I saw a decent number of animals, however I was informed that I had not chosen the best time to visit the park (in june). At that time trophy hunters were operating in private concessions close to the national park. Apparently that made some animals more elusive and thus harder to spot from the safari roads inside the national parks. I was assured that this was only a temporary issue and that animals would come out into the open more when the hunting season ended.
I was also informed that i visited the park during a dry spell, so some animals had migrated into Botswana. But that they would return with the rains. I saw plenty of evidence of lions in the park but they stayed out of sight. No sign of any leopards. But did see cheetahs which was nice. There were plenty of birds, elephants, antelope, hippos, crocodiles and even a honey badger. We stayed at a campsite inside the park which was one of the best i have ever camped at anywhere in Africa. The camp faced a watering hole, where we enjoyed the sunset and watched various animals enjoy a drink and bath. Then at night we had clear starry skies, the sound of night insects and various animals, including hyenas, to enjoy as we ate dinner.
Overall i can say from experience, having visited all the top wildlife parks across southern and east africa, that Hwange can be among the best of them when the conditions are right.