There are two main towns where people stay while visiting Victoria Falls. One is the town of Victoria Falls, on the Zimbabwe side of the Zambezi Gorge. The other, where we stayed, is Livingstone, Zambia. To go into Chobe National Park from Livingstone, you need to take a car to the border, walk through immigration, then walk to the border point, a waterway from which you can see four countries at once (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana). Then you get on a boat that takes you across to the Botswana side, where safari cars are waiting.*

Now, doing all this on your own would be possible but likely overwhelming. We had help from guides who take people there and back every day. I definitely recommend booking a tour that includes transportation so you’re not left to navigate on your own - you never know, you could end up in the wrong country! 

Anyway, we went to Chobe National Park to see three things: water buffalo, hippos and crocodiles. Those three animals are not found in the parts of Namibia we visited and thus we hadn’t seen any yet. The water buffalo was at the top of our list, since it was the final animal of the “Big 5” we hadn’t seen. Soon after getting into the park, we’d seen dozens of them and would only see more throughout the day. 

We also saw tons of crocs and hippos, both in the water and on the riverbank. It’s astonishing how many crocodiles you see floating around and coming up to check out happenings on the surface. Even more so that for every one you see, there are probably 15 more lurking below. Let’s just say you would not want to find yourself in that water… 

*The safari we did was half driving, half boating, so later that day we were on another boat before doing the entire trip in reverse to get back to Zambia. In total, if you include walking, we switched transportation modes 10 times!