Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe

“It’s a massive park and a lot of it is inaccessible,” says Simon Mills, from our Africa adventure specialists Native Escapes. “You just don’t get many people there and so you get brilliant game viewing. It’s the place to go if you love elephants, as there are thousands upon thousands of them; but there are a huge amount of other species too… Last time I was there I saw a really strong pride of lions, huge packs of wild dogs and other plains game such as antelopes and giraffes.”

Visiting Hwange National Park not only delivers on the wildlife watching front, it also brings in valuable funds to support conservation and fight internationally funded poaching. Zimbabwe’s national parks, Hwange included, have struggled in recent years due to both a lack of investment and lack of tourists, with many deterred by the persistent flow of bad news emerging from the country. Hopefully, increased investment under Robert Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has stated his commitment to both conservation and the tourism industry, will see Zimbabwe’s wild spaces thriving again.

For the moment, many safari operators in Hwange National Park are heavily involved in protecting wildlife and working to improve the lives of local people, putting tourist revenue into jobs, education, providing clean water and protecting farmers’ crops from roaming wildlife – and in so doing, reducing both human-animal conflict and the need to resort to poaching and other wildlife crimes.

Most people spend two to three days in Hwange as part of a longer tour of Zimbabwe or Southern Africa. Wildlife is plentiful and the number of tourists so few that it feels as if you and your group are alone in the wilderness – you won’t find hordes of jeeps crowding around one stressed lion here. Safaris begin early. You’ll usually be up at dawn, for breakfast and hot drinks before heading out into the bush, either in a 4x4, where you’ll cover more ground and are more likely to see the big beasts, or on a walking safari with an armed scout, where the focus is on smaller wildlife, plants and animal tracks. You can choose between going on a full day’s safari or returning to your camp for lunch and heading out again, either for an afternoon or night-time drive. Or, for something a little different, you could try a horseback safari – some tour companies offer the chance to ride from one lodge to the next.

There are all kinds of accommodation in Hwange National Park, from state-run camps offering self-catering facilities and campgrounds to super luxury private bush camps. “The accommodation in Hwange is really good and there’s a real mix of stuff,” says Simon Mills. “You have some incredible tented camps that are very luxurious and then you also have some solid three-star camps... The lodges we work with don’t use plastic, they use recyclable bottles, they mostly use solar energy, and a lot of them have their own fruit and veg that they grow or use local farmers to grow. ”

Many of the camps are also involved in conservation as well as supporting people living in nearby villages. “The majority of camps that we use support the surrounding local communities and a lot of them get involved in conservation efforts, particularly in relation to conflict with farming and predators,” says Simon Mills. “But also, there are two or three camps that really support local schools in terms of helping with building, supporting teachers’ salaries, and that sort of thing. And one group of lodges in particular will allow you to do a school run. They’ll take out the open safari vehicles when the kids are on the way to school and let the kids jump in the vehicles to go to school, so you really get involved at a nice level there.”