BOAT CRUISES

The Zambezi is the heart of Kayube, and the best way to know it is from the water. 


Head out on a morning game cruise and the banks come alive — pods of hippo surfacing beside the boat, crocodiles basking on the sandbars, elephant coming down to drink, and more birdlife than you could hope to count. It is unhurried, close-up game viewing of a kind the land can rarely match. 


As the day softens, the sunset cruise takes over, and it is something else entirely: a drink in hand, the water turning gold and then a deep rose, fish eagles calling overhead, and the particular stillness that settles over this stretch of river at dusk. 


Both cruises set off from our own bank, so there is no long transfer to eat into your day. However many times you go out — and most guests go more than once — no two mornings or evenings on the Zambezi are ever quite the same.

SAFARI 


Few places put you this close to so much. Kayube is ringed by some of southern Africa’s finest game country, and from our doorstep you can reach three national parks across three different countries. 


Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is barely twenty minutes away, home to white rhino, giraffe, zebra, buffalo and elephant, and ideal for a half-day drive. 


An hour’s journey takes you to Chobe in Botswana, famous the world over for its enormous herds of elephant gathering along the river. 


And directly across the water lies Zimbabwe’s Zambezi National Park — so close that game can be watched from the comfort of your own bed or balcony, coffee in hand, before you’ve even thought about the day ahead. Whether you want to be out at first light in search of big game, or simply to lie back and let Africa come to you, the choice is entirely yours. 

We’ll help you shape each day around exactly the kind of safari you’re after.

VILLAGE TOURS


To understand this corner of Zambia, spend a morning in the villages that neighbour the estate. Led by the people who live there, a village tour is an unhurried and genuine welcome — not a staged performance, but a real chance to sit with families, meet the children, and learn how a Zambian community lives, farms, cooks and passes down its stories. 


You might watch craftspeople at work, hear the history of the local people, or simply share conversation over the course of a slow, warm morning. 


It is the kind of experience that gives far more back than it asks, and guests tell us it reshapes how they see the whole region — the wildlife and the landscape suddenly set within a living community rather than apart from it. 


For many, it turns out to be the quietest and most memorable part of their stay, and the connections made have a way of lingering long after the journey home.

SCHOOL


Kayube has long been bound up with the Zambezi School Project, a charity close to our family’s heart that educates over a hundred local children near Livingstone who would otherwise go without an education. 


Alongside their schooling, the children are given meals and the kind of steady, well-rounded support that changes the course of a young life. 


Guests staying with us are warmly welcome to visit the school, meet the teachers and pupils, and see the work being done first-hand — and, for those who feel moved to, to sponsor a child’s education and become a lasting part of the story. 


It is among the things we are proudest to share about this place, and we think it speaks to what Kayube is really about: not just a beautiful escape, but a genuine connection to the community around it. 


A morning spent at the school has a quiet way of reframing a holiday into something that stays with you for good.

ELEPHANT CAFÉ


A short trip from Kayube lies the Elephant Café, set on the banks of the Zambezi just above Victoria Falls, pairs celebrated fine dining with a herd of rescued elephants — orphans who were given a home and raised with patience and care. 


Guests first meet the herd and spend time in their company, then settle in to a riverside lunch of inventive “bush gourmet” cooking, built around wild, local and seasonal ingredients and consistently rated among the very finest restaurants in the country. 


The setting, the food and the elephants together make for a rare half-day that very few places anywhere could offer. It is understandably popular and runs to a set menu, so reservations are essential and dietary needs are best flagged in advance — but there is no need to worry about any of the logistics. 


Tell us you’d like to go, and we’ll arrange the whole thing for you.

VICTORIA FALLS



No visit to this part of the world is complete without the Falls. Just thirty minutes from Kayube, Victoria Falls — known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders” — is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, and no photograph ever quite prepares you for it: the sheer scale of the curtain of water, the spray drifting high above the gorge, and a roar you feel as much as hear. 



There is as much or as little as you’d like to make of it. Walk the network of viewpoints along the Zambian side, feel the mist on your face at the edge, take a guided tour into the history and geology of the place, or come in the right season for a swim at the very lip of the Falls. 



Whatever you choose, we’ll help you plan the trip so you catch it at its best — and from Kayube, you can be standing before one of the great sights on earth within the hour.

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