Livingstone, Zambia

The Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia Hotel by Anantara

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The takeaway

Choose it for a rare Victoria Falls base where a short garden walk reaches the falls and zebras may wander past the riverfront grounds.

About the hotel

The Royal Livingstone occupies landscaped riverbank grounds inside Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Its 173 rooms and suites are arranged in four categories, with the hotel’s gardens offering direct access to the falls. The Zambezi is part of the stay’s daily backdrop, and wildlife including zebras roams the grounds. The defining experience is unusually close contact with both the river landscape and the falls, rather than a base in Livingstone town.

Choose it if

You want direct garden access to Victoria Falls, rather than a drive from town.
You enjoy a riverside setting where wildlife, including zebras, can move through the grounds.
You want to pair falls visits with on-site dining, a riverfront pool, and spa treatments.

Skip it if

You want to stay in central Livingstone: the hotel is about 10.4 km from the city centre.
You prefer a genuinely historic hotel; this property’s colonial-era look is a designed style, not an old surviving building.

The property

In photographs.

Guest discussion

What real people are saying.

Reddit excerpts · separate from Rex’s editorial judgment

One guest singles out the strong service and food, and says the hotel’s access to Victoria Falls was hard to match. Their visit coincided with high water, which ruled out Devil’s Pool but made seeing the falls especially memorable.

Discussion is limited; these accounts offer a glimpse rather than a broad verdict.

“The service was excellent, food was great, and the access to the falls can’t be beat. When we were there, the water was too high for devils pool, but wow visiting the falls then was incredible”

r/chubbytravel ↗ · May 13, 2025

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