Step off the main deck at The Hide, walk down a flight of stairs into a ten-metre concrete tunnel, and emerge at ground level beside a permanent waterhole. Tom Preston built this underground hide on a private concession on the eastern boundary of Hwange National Park, and the idea behind it is simple. It puts guests eye-to-eye with drinking elephants.
It puts guests eye-to-eye with drinking elephants
The pan in front of camp is pumped year-round, and that matters most in the dry season, when Hwange’s water sources shrink and elephants and buffalo gather in their hundreds. From the sunken bunker at the waterline, the animals cannot detect the people watching them. What you get is close, quiet observation: mud-caked feet inches from the viewing slit, trunks working the shallows.
Tom Preston built The Hide because he wanted an unpretentious camp rather than a polished one. He died in 1995, and the camp stayed in the family. Today his son Angus owns and runs it with his wife Pam, alongside a long-tenured Zimbabwean guiding and hosting team. The Prestons have since co-founded Changa Safari Camp on Lake Kariba with the Higgins family.
On public park roads, night drives and walking are off-limits
The concession sits inside the national park, and that changes what is possible. On public park roads, night drives and walking are off-limits. Here both are permitted, so guests track on foot with licensed Zimbabwean guides, follow spotlit drives after nocturnal species, and cross the concession without another vehicle in sight. Up to four activities run each day.
The focal building is a double-storey open-sided A-frame in timber and thatch. Downstairs holds the dining room, a sun lounge and a small library, while the upper level opens to a viewing deck over the vlei. Built into the tunnel wall is a temperature-controlled cellar of international wines, so guests can lift a bottle from a lit recess on their way down to the hide. The cooking leans toward hearty farmhouse fare, drawn partly from the camp’s own organic garden and served communally around a teak table, or al fresco beneath the acacias.
Ten canvas-and-thatch tents stand on raised decks, each turned to face the waterhole, with teak dressing tables, mosquito netting and en-suite bathrooms of indoor and outdoor tubs and showers. Two exclusive-use options sit within the concession. Tom’s Little Hide comes with its own pool, chef, guide and vehicle, while The Private Hide draws together adjacent main-camp tents into a self-contained camp with its own dining room, lounge and pool. A short walk away, the Dove’s Nest treehouse sleep-out is reached by a wooden stairway through a trapdoor, set high over a tree-lined vlei where elephants and giraffes pass below.
Lions hunt and drink at the pan after dark, leopards move through the teak forest
The waterhole is the constant. Kudu, giraffe, zebra, waterbuck and impala come daily, and the dry season brings great gatherings of buffalo and elephant to Hwange’s eastern sector. Lions hunt and drink at the pan after dark, leopards move through the teak forest, and cheetah and African wild dogs range the wider concession. The birdlife runs to more than 400 species. Mornings begin with tea brought to the tent and a chorus of hornbills and francolins, and the nights carry the rumble of elephants at the water.
The Hide operates under a conservation, community, culture and commerce framework and belongs to The Long Run. It was a founding member of the Conservation & Wildlife Fund, which coordinates protection across the Hwange ecosystem, and of Friends of Hwange, which converts the park’s critical boreholes to solar power. On its own land, an indigenous tree nursery propagates more than a thousand seedlings, with beehive fences protecting the saplings from elephant damage. The Hide Community Trust supports Chezhou Primary School and the Shantani Women’s Group, work that ties the camp’s future to the communities along the park boundary.
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accommodation
Ten canvas-and-thatch tents on raised wooden decks, all facing the waterhole, with teak furniture and en-suite bathrooms, with indoor or outdoor tubs. Exclusive-use options include Tom's Little Hide and The Private Hide, plus the Dove's Nest treehouse sleep-out. Maximum 20 guests.
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activities
Morning and afternoon game drives, guided walking safaris and spotlit night drives, all permitted because the concession sits inside Hwange National Park. The underground hide offers independent, close-range waterhole viewing. Walking safaris require guests aged 16 and over. Birding runs to over 400 species; Dove's Nest sleep-outs are available.
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conservation
The Hide is a founding member of the Conservation & Wildlife Fund and Friends of Hwange, which solar-converts park boreholes. An on-site nursery propagates over a thousand indigenous trees, with beehive fences guarding the saplings. The Hide Community Trust supports Chezhou Primary School and the Shantani Women's Group. A Long Run member operating under the conservation, community, culture and commerce framework.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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Most guests fly into Victoria Falls and connect by light aircraft, thirty-five to forty minutes to the local airstrip at Umtshibi, followed by a drive of around forty minutes into the concession. We can arrange the leg as a shared charter or as a private one, typically a Cessna Caravan or Pilatus PC-12, flown to your schedule, and either way the bags need to be soft-sided for the aircraft.
The road option from Victoria Falls takes around three and a half hours, entering the park near Main Camp and finishing with a drive through the park itself, which works well paired with a one-way flight.
Yes. Hwange stands at around a thousand metres, under the 1,200 metre line below which the UK's official travel health advice rates Zimbabwe's malaria risk as high from November to June, and antimalarial tablets are usually recommended for those months. From July to October the risk is lower, though the CDC recommends tablets for all travel in Zimbabwe whatever the month, which is why many guests simply take them regardless.
Confirm the current advice with a travel clinic or your doctor before departure, and treat dusk as the signal for repellent and long sleeves.
Think in extremes. From June to August the nights and early mornings are cold enough to touch freezing, and the underground tunnel to the waterhole stays cool even at midday, so warm layers, a hat and gloves matter more than people expect of Africa. By October the days are hot and still, and the green season from November to March adds humidity and afternoon storms.
Neutral colours, a sun hat, high-factor sunscreen and binoculars serve every season, with a light waterproof for the summer months. Soft bags only if you are flying in, and leave room for a fleece you will live in at dawn.
The main camp takes children from ten years old, an age at which the long quiet sessions at the waterhole start to land properly. Families with younger children are not turned away, they simply book differently: Tom's Little Hide and The Private Hide are exclusive-use options with no age limit, run with their own guide and vehicle, so a family answers to nobody's timetable but its own.
Guided walking is reserved for ages sixteen and over. Tell us your children's ages when you enquire and we will recommend which version of the camp fits, or say plainly if another camp would serve the family better.
More than most. All meals and snacks, drinks including the teas and coffees that punctuate a safari day, laundry, wifi and up to four guided activities a day are all inside the rate, so a full day here, dawn walk to night drive, adds nothing to the bill.
Transfers and flights are priced separately, and we bring the whole journey together in one quote at the outset so the real cost is visible before you commit to anything.
For sheer volume of wildlife, the dry season from July to October, when the last natural water disappears and the pumped pan in front of camp becomes one of the busiest places in eastern Hwange. The trade-off is temperature: near-freezing dawns in the winter months, then serious heat by October.
The green season from November to March is a different park, grasses high, migrant birds in, young animals everywhere, and the camp far quieter. Photographers often prefer the storm light and the dust-free air. There is no wrong month so much as a different camp in each one, so tell us what you want from the trip and we will place the dates.
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