Best Time to Visit Victoria Falls: Water, Devil's Pool and Rafting

Ask ten people who have been to Victoria Falls when to go and you get two answers that contradict each other. The April people talk about the noise and the wall of spray. The October people saw the whole gorge, swam at the lip and rafted the biggest rapids on earth. Both are right. The river decides which falls you get.

What the Zambezi does each month

The Zambezi River Authority measures the river just above the falls and publishes the figures every fortnight. The long-term mean is 1,100 cubic metres a second, the record is 10,000 (March 1958, while Kariba was being built) and the worst season, 1995/96, averaged 390. The water comes from the upper catchment in north-western Zambia, where ZimParks puts the source, so the river is still low at the start of the local rainy season and peaks in April and May, after the rain at the falls has mostly stopped.

Month	What the river is doing	A measured figure (ZRA)
January	Rising, slowly	613 m3/s on 18 January 2023
February	Rising fast	1,209 m3/s on 8 February 2021
March	Big water, spray thickening	the record 10,000 m3/s came in March 1958
April	Peak or near it	3,922 m3/s on 20 April 2020; 2,630 on 27 April 2022
May	Peak in late years, then the fall starts	ZRA expected the 2021 peak at the end of May
June	Falling, still well above the mean	1,874 m3/s on 21 June 2023
July	Falling quickly	950 m3/s on 18 July 2023, 675 on 31 July
August	Low	481 m3/s on 23 August 2023
September	Lower	409 m3/s on 5 September 2023
October	The bottom	328 m3/s on 14 October 2026 (247 a year earlier)
November	Bottom, first local storms	no ZRA figure to hand
December	Still low	no ZRA figure to hand

The spread between years is large: the April 2020 figure was nearly four times the 2019 one on the same date. A wet year upstream makes April a wall of spray and keeps Devil’s Pool shut into September. A dry year opens the pool in August.

The view, the spray and your camera

The falls are 1,708 m wide and 108 m high, and the 23.4 km2 of rainforest on the Zimbabwe side exists because the spray waters it (ZimParks). In April and early May that spray comes down as rain. On the rainforest path you are soaked within minutes, from below as much as above, so bring a raincoat that seals and a dry bag for the phone. Seeing the falls is another matter: at the Main Falls viewpoints you often look into white, and at peak the air is the only place the whole curtain is visible from.

June and July are when the views sort themselves out. In June the river is still well above its mean and in July it drops through it, so every section still carries water, but the spray has dropped enough to see across the gorge. Expert Africa says the views are at their best; I would not argue.

From September to early December the river runs at about a third of its mean. The Zimbabwe side still looks like a waterfall, still impressive in Expert Africa’s words, but much of the lip is bare rock with threads of water down it. The Zambian side almost completely dries up, so much so that the lunar rainbow tours there stop (Victoria Falls Guide). This is the season for the gorge and the geology, not for a postcard.

Devil’s Pool and Livingstone Island

Both are in Zambia. Livingstone Island sits on the lip of the falls, ten minutes by boat from the Zambian bank, and Green Safaris run the tours. Their published season (checked 18 October 2026): the island is open 11 to 12 months of the year, Devil’s Pool from late August to December subject to water levels, and from January to late August the high water puts you in Angel’s Pool instead. From 1 September you walk across rather than boating. Sessions take 32 guests at most, and in the short Devil’s Pool season they fill, so book before you fly. The Mosi-oa-Tunya park fee is on top: US$10 a day for an international visitor on Zambia Tourism’s 2025 list. If the pool is the point of the trip, come between mid September and November; Wild Horizons give mid September as the usual opening, and September is the risky end in a wet year.

Rafting: when it runs and when it stops

The rafting season is a mirror image of the viewing season. Shearwater, rafting here since 1985, split it into low water from August to December, when you put in at the Boiling Pot under the falls and run rapids 1 to 19, and high water from January to July, when you skip the first ten and start at rapid 11. Between the two there is a closure: Wild Horizons say typically March to May, varying with rainfall; Victoria Falls Guide puts it from about March until the water drops in June.

Prices, checked 18 October 2026: Shearwater charge US$173 for a low water day and US$161 for high water, with a US$12 park fee on top and a minimum age of 15. Wild Horizons quote a US$10 river usage fee; ZimParks’ 2026 tariff lists it at US$12 for an international day visitor, so expect that. Multi-day trips run only in low water, August to early December, from US$330 for the overnight version. The day ends with the steep climb out of the gorge, and in October that hurts more than the rapids. If rafting is the reason you are coming, book August to November. In June or July you still raft, just not the first ten.

The lunar rainbow

On the three nights around each full moon ZimParks reopens the rainforest after dark, and if the sky is clear and there is spray, the moon throws a rainbow across the gorge. The moonlight ticket is a separate line on the tariff, US$116 for an international adult in 2026 (checked 18 October 2026). Tours start at 18:00, 19:00 and 19:30 on the three nights from May to August, and at 19:00, 19:30 and 20:00 from September to April.

You need spray but not too much, and no cloud. Cloud cancels many rainy season nights, and from September to early December the Zimbabwe side produces a moonbow from a couple of viewpoints while the Zambian side has nothing. The best months are June, July and August. The remaining nights of 2026 are 23 to 25 November and 23 to 25 December (Victoria Falls Guide’s 2026 table).

Temperatures and rain by month

The official 1961 to 1990 normals for the Victoria Falls station, supplied by Zimbabwe’s Meteorological Services Department to the World Meteorological Organization. They are old, so treat them as a shape rather than a forecast.

Month	Average high	Average low	Rain	Rain days
January	29.7°C	18.2°C	168 mm	14
February	29.4°C	17.9°C	126 mm	10
March	29.7°C	17.0°C	70 mm	7
April	29.2°C	13.9°C	24 mm	2
May	27.4°C	9.5°C	3 mm	1
June	25.0°C	6.0°C	1 mm	0
July	24.8°C	5.6°C	0 mm	0
August	27.8°C	8.2°C	0 mm	0
September	31.8°C	12.8°C	2 mm	1
October	33.4°C	17.0°C	27 mm	4
November	32.4°C	18.2°C	64 mm	8
December	30.2°C	18.1°C	174 mm	13

October catches people out: dry, still and hot until the first storm. A June or July morning at 6°C on an open vehicle is properly cold; take a fleece and a beanie, you will use them for an hour a day.

Malaria

Victoria Falls sits below the 1,200 m line TravelHealthPro uses for Zimbabwe, and the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority names it as a high risk area. The UK advice (checked 18 October 2026) is high risk from November to June, with atovaquone and proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine, and low risk from July to October, when bite avoidance replaces tablets. The Zambezi valley downstream is a risk all year, which matters if Mana Pools or Kariba are on the same trip; the travel essentials guide covers the rest of the country.

What peak season costs and when the town is full

The park has no peak rate: the Rainforest gate is US$58 for an international adult in any month under ZimParks’ 2026 tariff (checked 18 October 2026; the full table is on the park page). Hotels do. One agent lists Victoria Falls Safari Lodge at US$331 per person sharing for bed and breakfast from August to December 2026, US$303 from January to June 2027 and US$348 from July to December 2027 (checked 18 October 2026), about 15% between the halves of the year. Crowds follow the dry season: Expert Africa says rooms in the town can sell out a year ahead for August and that September is the most popular month, and Wild Horizons start low season rates in November, the festive season usually excluded. Expert Africa’s low rate months are January to March.

Zimbabwe side or Zambia side, and the UniVisa

The Zimbabwe side gives you the long walk along the lip and the rainforest, and holds water in every month. The Zambian side is far cheaper to enter, has Livingstone Island, and is dry from September into December. For a first visit do both, which is what the KAZA UniVisa is for.

The UniVisa costs US$50, lasts 30 days, lets you cross between Zimbabwe and Zambia as often as you like and covers a day trip into Botswana through Kazungula for Chobe (Zambia Department of Immigration, checked 18 October 2026). It did not go up when Zambia raised its single entry visa to US$50 on 1 January 2026, so for anyone who needs both visas it is plainly the best buy. GOV.UK lists it at Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls airports and the Victoria Falls and Kazungula land borders. Who qualifies is in the entry requirements guide.

Hwange, Chobe and Zambezi National Park by season

Hwange is at its best from August to October, when the animals gather at the waterholes and the bush has thinned (Expert Africa). The official Hwange normals have July nights averaging 4.6°C and Expert Africa says it has dropped below freezing, so pack properly. The green season from November to April is passable because the ground is sand and rock, with birds and low rates but dispersed game. The ZimParks day fee is US$24 for an international adult (2026 tariff, checked 18 October 2026).

Chobe across the Botswana border works the same way: dry season from May to October, with the game packed onto the Chobe River by August (Expert Africa). Chobe is a day trip from Victoria Falls through Kazungula, on the UniVisa if you hold one.

Zambezi National Park, the game drive country just upstream of town, is the one to watch in the rains: Victoria Falls Guide says it can close after heavy rain between December and March, with its best game viewing from late August to the first rains in mid November. The sunset cruises above the falls pay the same US$12 river fee as the rafters.

So late August to October is the one window in which the falls, Devil’s Pool, the full rafting run, Hwange and Chobe are all at or near their best. It is also the hottest and the dearest.

What I would pick

A first look at the falls plus a safari: the second half of June or July, full falls with the spray lifting, a lunar rainbow if the moon obliges, rafting from rapid 11, cold mornings in Hwange, and in July no tablets. Devil’s Pool, the gorge and the big rapids: late September or October, and accept the heat. The biggest water: the last week of April or May, with a helicopter booked. The cheapest trip: February, green, wet afternoons, a rising river, empty hotels and tablets in your bag.