Every lodge, camp and campsite in and around the park, from simple campsites to exclusive-use camps on the game circuits. Independently listed, and nobody can pay to rank higher.
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Hwange has an unusually strong local story. Imvelo Safari Lodges is Zimbabwean-owned, built on communal land through the CAMPFIRE programme, and pumps around a fifth of the waterholes that keep this park alive. Amalinda, The Hide and Camp Hwange are long-established Zimbabwean family businesses. Look for the green and brown badges if you want your money to stay in the country.
Thatch and canvas chalets · Private concession, Sinamatella sector, three hours from Main Camp
Founded by Dave Carson, one of Zimbabwe's most respected professional guides, and bought outright by Wild Expeditions in 2023, who run it the same way. What sets it apart is not a slogan about guiding but an arrangement: every guest is assigned a fully qualified walking guide rather than an apprentice, so you can walk or sit in a log-pile hide whenever the moment is right instead of waiting for a pro guide to become free. It also overlooks two natural waterholes rather than pumped ones. No credit card facility, limited signal.
Chalets and a large campsite · Far north-west, two hours from Victoria Falls
No longer a ZimParks camp, despite what many guides say. Under private management it has become the best-value serviced option in the park, and the Robins sector delivers the biggest buffalo herds and the most lions. The campsite is genuinely good.
Campsite
Spa or massage
From $40 campingYear-round, though the black-cotton roads get difficult from late November
Luxury tented camp · Private concession in the southern half of the park, an hour from Main Camp
A private concession inside the park that ordinary visitors cannot enter, which means night drives and no traffic. The pan sits right in front of camp and works all day, so you can watch from your own deck between drives.
Eco-luxury tented camp · Remote north-west, between Sinamatella and Robins
Perched above springs that never dry, in a corner of Hwange that sees very few visitors. Note one thing many sites get wrong: there are no night drives here, because it sits on park land rather than a private concession. Walking is what this camp does best.
Small tented camp for exclusive use · Private concession, Sinamatella sector, three hours from Main Camp
Opened in 2025 on the same concession as Camp Hwange, and built for a different kind of trip: four tents taken on an exclusive-use basis by privately guided groups who want to set their own schedule and their own mealtimes. It shares the guiding culture of the older camp next door, where every guest walks with a fully qualified guide.
Six tents, twelve guests, and the log-pile hide that has produced more famous Hwange elephant photographs than anywhere else. It sits at eye level on the waterhole in front of camp. Smaller and more classic than its sister camp Linkwasha.
Traditional tented camp · Linkwasha concession, south-east
The value entry into Wilderness's private concession: the same traversing rights, the same guides and the same game as Linkwasha, for around half the price in high season. No private hide here, but the pan in front does the work.
Self-catering lodges, cottages, chalets and camping · At the main gate near Dete, south-eastern sector
The park's original camp and where roughly eight in ten visitors stay. Know what you are booking: lodges have full kitchens, cottages share communal hotplates, and chalets cook on a braai with shared ablutions. Bring your own cookware and towels.
Open platform above a waterhole · Main Camp sector, above pumped pans
For sixty dollars you get a raised platform over a pumped pan, to yourself, all night. No staff, no facilities, no fence. If you only do one thing in Hwange that you will still talk about in ten years, make it this.
Exclusive-use campsite · Across the park, several beside the best hides
Book Masuma, Mandavu, Shumba, Deteema, Ngweshla or Kennedy 1 and the site is yours alone for the night. Masuma's hide over the dam is the standout. Bring absolutely everything, including water you trust.
Self-catering lodges and camping · Northern sector, on a 55-metre outcrop above the Deka riverbed
The clifftop position is unmatched: you look out over the valley with elephants often visible below. Be realistic about the state of it, though. Recent visitors describe it as clean but tired, and you should assume the restaurant, shop and fuel pump are not working.
Luxury tented camp · Private concession on the eastern boundary, just over an hour from Main Camp
Founded in 1992 and still run by the same family, and the reason to come is the hide. A tunnel runs from the deck to an underground photographic hide at water level, which you can use unaccompanied at any hour. Nothing else in Hwange comes close.
Raised treehouse chalets · Sikumi Forest, fifteen minutes from the Main Camp gate
Raised chalets on stilts on a private fenced conservancy, and the most practical family option in Hwange. The waterhole in front is floodlit and busy, there is a covered hide at ground level, and you can drive here yourself on tar from Victoria Falls in two and a half hours.
Tented chalets on stilts · Sikumi Forest concession near Dete
Nine canvas-and-thatch chalets on an old riverbed where elephants come to drink, and where they have a habit of emptying the pool. Run by a Zimbabwean family whose trust funds clinics and schools in Dete. Being on a private concession means night drives, which the park itself does not allow.
Thatched rondavels · Dete Vlei, Sikumi Forest, 17 km from Main Camp
If you see this listed as Sable Sands with sixteen rondavels, that is the pre-2022 property. It was rebuilt and repositioned, and its underground hide is the most comfortably equipped in the area: you can sit there all afternoon with a fire, a drink and a charging point.
Air-conditioned tented suites · Linkwasha concession, edge of the Ngamo Plains, south-east
The most polished camp in Hwange, on a private concession closed to ordinary park visitors. Air conditioning, a sunken hide fitted out for photographers, and a star bed under the Ngamo sky. Priced accordingly.
Luxury tented suites · Private concession on the Kennedy Vlei line, eastern sector
The elephant pool is the image everyone knows: a plunge pool on the main deck that elephants drink from while you sit beside it. Founded by a Black Zimbabwean guide who built one of Africa's better safari companies from this camp outwards.
Meru tents on platforms · Same concession as Somalisa Camp, eastern sector
The clever booking in this park. You get exactly the same private concession, the same guides and the same elephant pool as Somalisa Camp, in a simpler tent, for a third less. If you care more about what you see than what you sleep in, book this.
Sail-canvas tented camp · Acacia grove over the Kennedy Vlei, eastern sector
Reports that this camp closed or merged are wrong; it was repositioned as the family option while its sister camp went adults-oriented. Two interconnecting family suites, a children's programme, and the same concession and elephant pool.
Rustic-luxury thatched suites · Robins sector, on a bluff above a dam, two hours from Victoria Falls
Rebuilt from a derelict parks outpost with reclaimed materials and reopened in 2019. It looks out over a permanent dam, which in a park without rivers means constant game, and it sits in the sector with the most lions and the biggest buffalo herds.
Canvas under thatch suites · Private concession in northern Hwange, 15 km from Sinamatella
A 43,500-acre private concession around ancient seeps where elephants dig for water, as they have done for generations. Imvelo is Zimbabwean-owned and maintains roughly a fifth of the waterholes that keep this park alive, so staying here funds that directly.
Forest villas · Community land in Tsholotsho district, south-eastern edge
Community-built on communal land under Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE programme, which means the village shares directly in what you pay. The hide is buried under an ancient tree and disguised as a termite heap, putting you at elephant eye level.
Tented lodge · Private concession in the Ngamo Forest, south-eastern edge
The most accessible of Imvelo's camps and the one that best shows their model: a private gate into the park, a sunken hide, and community visits that are part of the rate rather than an upsell. You can even arrive by their own railcar from Dete.
Rustic bush camp · Remote south-west, Kalahari sand country
In country that went unused for nearly twenty years, and the only camp in Hwange where you can explore by mountain bike, using troughs the elephants have compacted through deep Kalahari sand. Bucket showers, cooking over flames, and a bed you can wheel outside.
Wi-Fi
En-suite bathrooms
Solar or 24h power
From $355 pppnYear-round, with a possible short green-season break
Semi-permanent Meru tents · Dolilo Pan, remote north-west near Robins
A genuine seasonal bush camp: taken down at the end of each dry season and put back up the next. Walking is what you come for, in a corner of the park with high lion density and almost no traffic. No wifi, no pool, wood-fired cooking. Owned by Dave Carson, who founded Camp Hwange and sold it in 2023.
Chalets, bungalows and camping · Private teak-forest estate on the park boundary
The best-value real beds in the Hwange area, run by a Zimbabwean owner who founded the local tourism association. There is an active elephant waterhole below the restaurant and the splash pool, and camping costs ten dollars.
Swimming pool
Wi-Fi
Restaurant
Campsite
and 3 more
From $10 campingYear-round, one of the few that never closes
Serviced self-catering tented camp · Beside Masuma Dam, 20 km south of Sinamatella
Self-catering but serviced, right beside Masuma Dam and its excellent hide, at a fraction of what any lodge inside the park charges. You cook, they look after the rest. Bring a capable vehicle and all your supplies.
Self-catering
From about $73 pppnEffectively April to November; high clearance needed
Elevated tents, treehouses and rondavels · Dete Annex, on the tar road about 20 km from the gate
Zimbabwean-owned and unfenced, with two waterholes and a resident lion pride. The half-board rates make it one of the few places where you can stay somewhere genuinely nice without paying inclusive-lodge prices. You do have to drive into the park, which is the trade-off.
Stone and thatch chalets · Sikumi teak forest, 4 km from the Main Camp gate
Run by the state forestry commission's commercial arm, with the proceeds mandated to fund forest conservation. It is the closest bed to the gate, which is worth a lot if you want to be first through at six in the morning. Expect basic state-run standards.
Large safari hotel · On the boundary, 12 km from the Main Camp gate, beside the airport
Not a bush camp but a proper hotel, and the only one with conference capacity in the area. It was fully refurbished in 2024 for its fiftieth year. The floodlit waterhole out front has its own webcam, and it works well if you have no car, since it is the transfer hub for several other lodges.
Self-catering tented camp and campsite · Impofu Siding at Dete, about 6 km from the Main Camp office
Owner-run, six kilometres from the gate, and the best genuinely budget bed in the area. Trains still pass on the old line beside camp, elephants wander through, and the owners are hands-on. Bring your own food or arrange a cook.
Campsite · Alongside the railway near the park entrance
The newest and cheapest option at the gate: bring a tent and take a private site with its own bathroom, which almost no campsite in the region offers. Straightforward, well run and beside the old railway line.
Swimming pool
Family rooms
Campsite
En-suite bathrooms
and 1 more
EnquireYear-round
Nothing matches all of those at once. Take one filter off and try again.
Indicative 2026 rates from operators' own rate cards, gathered July 2026. Always confirm with the lodge. One thing to watch when comparing: some camps include ZimParks fees in their rate and some do not, which shifts the real gap by $12 to $36 per person per night.
Facilities and activities come from each property's own website, read in July 2026. We only record what that property's own page states. Where a site was unreachable, or returned a page that did not identify the property, we leave the entry blank rather than guessing, so a blank means unchecked and not absent. Filtering on a facility shows only what we confirmed, and tells you how many places we could not check.
