The Smoke That Thunders

Travel Onion · 1:50

On the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, a river nearly two kilometres wide drops over the edge of a cliff all at once — and throws up a cloud you can see from up to fifty kilometres away. Before Livingstone named it after his queen in 1855, it already had a name: Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders. It's often called the largest curtain of falling water on Earth: the Zambezi drops about a hundred metres into a chasm only about twenty-five metres wide in places. On full-moon nights, when the river is high, the spray makes a rainbow in the dark — a moonbow. Downstream, every zigzag gorge was once the edge of the falls; the water has been wearing its way back for many thousands of years, and it's still going. And in the dry season you can swim in a rock pool right on the lip, on the Zambian side. Save this one for the trip you actually take. Follow for more places worth the trip. 📍 PLAN YOUR VISIT — VICTORIA FALLS ✈️ Getting there: fly to Livingstone (Zambia) or Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) — the towns are about 10 km apart, and you can walk across the bridge between them 📅 Best time: roughly March–May for the full curtain and the spray; roughly August–December for lower water, the rock face and the pool on the lip 🎯 Don't miss: the rainforest path · the Knife-Edge Bridge · the 1905 bridge at sunset · a moonbow walk at full moon