The best time to visit Victoria Falls is from February to May, directly after the region’s summer rains, when you’ll see the world’s largest sheet of falling water flowing at its greatest volume.
The Victoria Falls are roughly twice the height of North America’s Niagara Falls, and the thunderous roar can be heard for miles around. The sheer force of the water drives a column of spray far into the air, drenching the edge of the Falls in a fine mist and giving rise to its traditional name, Mosi-oa-Tunya or ‘The Smoke That Thunders’. For this reason visiting the Falls can be a sensory overload: the noise, heat and moisture come to together in an unforgettable natural show-stopper.
If you want to combine a safari to Victoria Falls with a visit to Botswana’s Chobe or Zimbabwe’s Hwange, the best time to visit is is the dry winter period from June to August. Expect great game viewing, warm days and cool nights, little to no rain and plenty of water still thundering over the precipice. Some activities, like swimming in the Devil’s Pool and certain sections of white-water rapids, are also far too dangerous to undertake when the water is at its highest and fastest.
We don’t recommend visiting the Falls at the end of the winter period – October through November – when the water level is lowest and the weather is very hot and humid. Low water levels guarantee you’ll have panoramic views (no misty spray) on both sides of the Falls, but the Zambian side may have dried up completely and all you’ll see is bare rock face. Water flow on the Zimbabwean side is permanent, but ebbs in volume with the seasons.