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Batonka Guest Lodge
A garden to come back to, a short walk from the Falls.
Quiet street, green garden
Batonka Guest Lodge is the real thing: a small, well-run lodge on a residential road in Victoria Falls, with the town's noise a suburb away and the Falls close enough to walk to. The rooms sit in low blocks of five and six around lawns and indigenous trees; the main house holds the restaurant and its verandah, a lounge with a fireplace for the winter evenings, a coffee bar on the terrace and a curio shop. The pool is in the middle of the garden, and most of the day drifts between it and the verandah.
The owners run the place themselves, and the tone follows from that — a closely-knit team, and an activities desk that will book the Zambezi cruise or the rafting and put you on the right transfer. The gardens are watered from the lodge's own grey water, the geysers are solar, and five dollars from every night goes to the town's anti-poaching unit.
A patio of your own
Every room opens onto its own patio, and that patio is the point: a chair, the lawn, the tree line, and an afternoon with nothing in it after a morning at the Falls. Inside, the rooms are plain and cool — a king or two twins under a mosquito net, air-conditioning, a fridge, a safe, a television, tea and coffee — with a bathroom of shower and twin basins, and a bath as well in about half of them. Sixteen rooms look across the lawn to the pool; eleven look into the garden proper, and several of those interlead for families. The Flame Lily Wing, five pool-view rooms with a pool and a dining space of their own, takes a small party that wants the lodge's quiet corner to itself.
The Falls in the morning, the garden after
The lodge is a base, and it is a good one: the Falls' entrance is a twenty-to-thirty-minute walk through the suburb, or five minutes by car, and the shuttle runs into town twice a day. Do the Falls early, before the heat and the coaches, and come back to the pool; the afternoon belongs to the river, the Zambezi at sunset from a boat, or to the bridge, the rafting, a flight over the gorge, all booked from the desk and paid for separately.
Two nights here, bed and breakfast, is the usual shape on a Botswana journey: the Falls on the first morning, the river that evening, and the road to Kasane and Chobe the day after.
Breakfast is the meal
Bed and breakfast is the rate, and breakfast is the meal the lodge puts its effort into: a cooked plate to order alongside the buffet of fruit, cereals, cold meats, cheese and fresh muffins, taken on the verandah with the garden in front of you before the day at the Falls. Lunch and dinner are à la carte in the restaurant, home cooking on a short menu that changes daily, indoors or out under the trees; the coffee bar on the terrace covers the hours in between, and the lounge fire is lit on winter evenings. Town is a short walk or the shuttle away for anyone who wants to eat out.
The lodge gives five dollars from every room night to the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit, the unit that patrols the bush around the town — so two nights here pay for a stretch of somebody's patrol.
A suburb of the town, close to the water
Batonka Guest Lodge stands on Reynard Road in a residential part of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, with the national park's boundary at the town's edge. Victoria Falls Airport is about twenty minutes away by road; the Kazungula border into Botswana about forty-five. The lodge arranges transfers from both.
What it costs.
Rates are per person per night, based on two guests travelling together (sharing).
The Falls, without the hotel
Victoria Falls has grand hotels, and this is not one of them — it is a garden lodge on a quiet road with hosts in the building, a proper breakfast and a pool under the trees, at a price that leaves room for the river and the safari after it. On a journey that goes on to Chobe and Moremi, it does exactly what the two Falls nights need: a calm base within reach of everything, and a good night's sleep before the road.
Is this for you
- ✓You want two nights at the Falls at either end of a safari in Botswana
- ✓A small, owner-run lodge with a garden suits you better than a large hotel
- ✓You'd rather pay for the outings you choose than for a package of them
Tell us your dates and where the journey goes after Victoria Falls — we'll place the two nights here, book the river, and arrange the road to Kasane.
The fine print.
- —Full breakfast daily
- —One-way shuttle transfers into Victoria Falls town, twice a day
- —WiFi across the property
- —Lunch, dinner and drinks
- —Entry to the Falls, and all activities and excursions
- —Airport and border transfers
- —Travel and medical insurance
- —Gratuities and items of a personal nature
There is no minimum age. Cots come on request; a standard room sleeps two, a family room two adults with two children, and interleading rooms take a larger party. The lodge has no child-minding service, and the pools are unfenced.
Victoria Falls Airport is about twenty minutes by road; the lodge arranges the transfer. From Botswana, the Kazungula border is about forty-five minutes away, and the road on to Kasane runs the other way.
The tap water is purified and safe to drink; sockets are 220-volt, square three-pin. The Falls' own entrance fee is paid at the gate.