Zambia · Southern Province
Where to Stay in Livingstone, Southern Province
Livingstone is a city of southern Zambia on the Zambezi, the town at the great Victoria Falls, named for the explorer who first brought the wonder to the world's notice.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Livingstone
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
A base in Livingstone comes down to the museum streets or the Zambezi bank. The streets around the centre keep the museums, the market, and the old colonial buildings within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the town. The wide main street runs long.
Curio stalls line the road. Out toward the falls and the river, the town gives way to the riverside lodges, the game park, and the road to Victoria Falls. A room by the Zambezi trades the streets for the river lodges, the sunset cruises, and the roar of the falls nearby.
The great river runs to the gorge. Stay downtown for the museums, or by the river for the falls. The thunder of the falls fills the air.
About Livingstone
Livingstone is the town at Victoria Falls.
What is Livingstone known for?
On the Zambezi river in the far south of Zambia, it grew as the old colonial capital by the great cataract, and it keeps the thundering falls of Mosi-oa-Tunya on the river's edge, the old iron bridge that leaps the gorge to Zimbabwe, the game park of elephants and rhinos along the river, and the museums that hold the relics of David Livingstone. The great falls thunder below. Spray drifts high over the gorge.
What are the main landmarks in Livingstone?
Victoria Falls is the wonder of Livingstone. The vast curtain of the Zambezi plunging into a mile-wide gorge, wrapped in a cloud of thundering spray, lies just south of the town, the emblem of the region, out of downtown. An iron bridge spans the chasm.
The old Victoria Falls Bridge arcs over the gorge to Zimbabwe, while the Livingstone Museum, the river game park, and the curio markets mark the country around Livingstone.
What is the history of Livingstone?
Livingstone grew at the great falls. In eighteen fifty-five the explorer David Livingstone came down the Zambezi and became the first European to see the mighty cataract the people called the smoke that thunders, and he named it for his queen. A town rose above the falls.
When the railway reached the river, a colonial town grew on the north bank, named for the explorer, and a great bridge was flung across the gorge. The town was the seat of a colony. For a time Livingstone was the capital of the whole of Northern Rhodesia, until the seat moved north, and it settled into a quiet town by the falls.
The falls drew the world in the end. Travelers came from everywhere for the thunder of the water, the rafting in the gorge, and the game of the river park, and Livingstone grew into the tourist city of the Zambezi, keeping its bridge, its museums, and its falls. The spray still rises over the town.
Livingstone keeps its place at Victoria Falls on the Zambezi.
Where is Livingstone?
Livingstone lies in the far south of Zambia, on the Zambezi river where it plunges over Victoria Falls. The city sits on flat bush country above the great river, on the border with Zimbabwe, with the falls and their gorges just downstream and the wide Zambezi and its game park to the west. The great river runs to the falls.
Spray rises white from the gorge.
What is the climate of Livingstone?
Livingstone has a hot, dry savanna climate. Warm dry weather holds much of the year on the river, with fierce heat before the rains and a green wet summer on the bush. Heat builds before the rains.
The falls thunder loudest in flood.
How do you get to Livingstone?
Livingstone lies in the far south of Zambia, at the border crossing to Zimbabwe. The road and rail run down to it from Lusaka and the Copperbelt, and the bridge carries the way over the gorge to Zimbabwe. Planes land by the falls.
Lusaka lies north up the road.
Good for
Updated August 2026