As I was researching our summer travel plans back at the beginning of 2023, I was looking for an easy add-on to our normal summer trip to Scotland. I was eyeing Norway or France for potential vacation spots. Then, one thing led to another, and we ended up with a five country itinerary across Southern Africa! (I’m thankful for my family’s willingness to roll with the punches when it comes to my trip planning!) My logic was that we could save one whole cross-Atlantic trip if we flew from the US to Scotland to South Africa to the US. Totally worth it, right? So, that is how we ended up taking just over two weeks to visit South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique.
I will write more detailed blog posts on our adventures during those two weeks, but it usually takes me a while (I’m still working on some posts from before we left Spain ..🤦♀️). Instead I’m going to offer a high level overview on this post, so we can get to the exciting part – each of the boys have written a post of their choice on our summer trip (I won’t go into detail on what kind of bribe may or may not have been involved in getting them to do it. It was a bit of a carrot/stick combo situation).
I’m sure you are just in it for the photos, so let’s get right to it:
First, we flew from Glasgow to Amsterdam to Johannesburg on a pleasant ~11 hour daytime flight. We didn’t change time zones, so we left early morning and arrived at night, just in time for bed. A great schedule to avoid the worst of jet lag.
We spent two quick nights in Johannesburg – this was the “buffer” time, just in case we had any delays, so we wouldn’t miss any precious safari time. Fortunately, everything stayed on schedule, so we got to enjoy a walking tour of Soweto on our full day in Johannesburg.
Next, we flew to Kasane, Botswana, right outside of Chobe National Park. We were picked up by our safari guide and spent two wonderful days at Chobe Game Lodge inside the park. It was the most amazing first safari experience, and something we will never forget! N counted 135 elephants in one day!
After Chobe, we had a transfer by road (about 1.5 hours) to Livingstone, Zambia, where we stayed at the Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls, right on the Zambezi river, within sight of Victoria Falls.
We only spent one night there, just long enough to check out the Zambia side of Victoria Falls
Next, we headed over the border to Zimbabwe, were we stayed at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, and had an amazing time visiting the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls.
going on a safari at a private game lodge,
and visiting a local village.
After our time in Zimbabwe, we jumped on a (nearly empty!) flight back to South Africa
this time to Kruger National Park. We hopped in a rental car and drove into the park (did we have to stop for elephants to pass us? why yes we did!)
and to our safari lodge for two more days of safari at Lukimbi Safari Lodge. We had our most memorable safari experience there, but I will leave it to the boys to share in their blog posts.
After our time at Kruger, we drove back to Johannesburg to catch a flight to Vilanculos, Mozambique. After a busy 10 days or so (including 5:30am wakeups for our morning safaris!), it was time to do a bit of R&R on the beach. We headed to Anantara Bazaruto Island resort, where we spent a few days just off the coast of Mozambique relaxing, swimming, and unexpectedly riding a helicopter!
After Mozambique, we had one last night back in Johannesburg before we flew home, so we took advantage of it by doing a few more things we didn’t have time to do, namely visiting the Cradle of Civilization and the Apartheid Museum.
This is just a quick summary of our trip, and we are excited to share more. Watch for the boys blog posts coming soon!
