This Luxurious African Train Trip Takes You From South Africa to Zimbabwe on Vintage Railcars — Here’s What It’s Like

That first morning aboard the Rovos Rail, opening the blinds of my cabin to see nothing but bush as far as the hills on the horizon, is something I will never forget. As thrilling as was the process of boarding, with all of the brass-band-festivity at the company’s Pretoria station in South Africa (complete with sparkling wine and a bevy of resident peacocks swirling around to see us off), it was this sensation of crawling awake — maybe it was the sounds of a wizened old acacia tree scratching by, or the rhythmic shunt of the track that did it — to find that we were fully on safari, on a train, that stayed with me throughout the journey.

Like any good Agatha Christie novel, my trip started at a grand hotel in town, in my case, the Four Seasons Westcliff, in Johannesburg, where we met the suspects or other travelers bound for the train. Sitting on the hotel’s deck overlooking the city’s trees, all rusting into gold with the autumn, and spying on elephants at the zoo, the game of guessing at the backstories of your fellow travelers began in earnest. And this is one of my favorite parts of traveling, I must say, the sly way of soft-meeting people, just by being in their company, in a casual but concentrated way, getting to know their behavior, their likes and dislikes and things, before you’ve even properly met.

The next stage, of course, is the introduction at the station in Pretoria, amid the peacocks and Champagne and the hustle and bustle of porters loading our luggage into compartments. Soon after, though, I was utterly lost in the experience of the train itself, in the nostalgically rickety-ness of locomotion, in the feeling of being in a rolling reenactment of “Out of Africa.” The tartan upholstery on the couches in the lounge cars and the slightly frilly, chintzy decor make the communal areas feel a bit like gentlemen’s clubs of yore; the daintiness of the dining cars, like something out of a doll house kit or a film set — which is to say, 100 percent my jam.

Once on board, of course, there is a bit of a frenzy — for me, anyway — to sort of mentally map the train, to walk its length, explore all the nooks and crannies, to get a sense of its movement, the physical and structural narrative of the train, if you will, and how and when each of the vignettes might best be seen, when they might come to life, or fall comfortingly quiet.

The first gathering for aperitifs is always quite fun because of the overwhelming excitement in the air and the sort of brittle energy as people bounce off walls and furniture, having the best time of their lives with the whole trip ahead of them. It is fun to reflect on this moment once we have all learned to sway and dance with the train’s rhythm, when the edges of our anticipation have smoothed, and we are all on the same tune.

I watch with growing warmth a family of particularly rigid and cantankerous riders, at first alarmed and angered at every shunt and jostle of the train’s movement, gradually go to jelly over the first couple of days, finally moving through the cars like happy Jamiroquai.

Rovos Rail was started by (and named for) Rohan Vos, who built the first series of cars in 1987 as a personal caravan, with room for an office and a gym, and cabins for his family as they moved around Southern Africa. Financial and transit necessity compelled him to make the train available for paying passengers shortly after and, as the company celebrated its 35th anniversary at the time of my ride, there are six full trains (which can accommodate up to 72 passengers), making 11 different itineraries, spanning 10 countries.

The cars making up each of the trains were mostly built between 1911 and 1938. Though they have been elaborately refurbished and modernized (including USB ports), the vintage romance of train travel is at the heart of the company’s mission.

As Vos’s daughter, who now runs the company, told us as she welcomed us onboard and reminded us of the dress codes, cell phones, and other electronics were not allowed in communal areas, as the idea was to connect with the experience and disconnect from… everything else. (I think it was only me (making videos of the train with my phone) who flagrantly broke the prohibition — everyone else willingly gave themselves over to the spellbinding enchantment of the ride.)

As a personal aside, it seems weird to say, but without cell service, internet, emails, and Instagram, and that constant wave of anxiety and information coming out of them, I realized just how tired I was (always am?), and slept like the dead on the train.

Not that it was all on the train! My journey from Pretoria to Victoria Falls made many stops for excursions and activities, including incredible game drives through Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe and the cartoon landscape of giant granite boulders in Matobo National Park before rolling into the legitimate wonder of the world that is Victoria Falls.

Once I arrived there, in Livingstone, I traveled across to the Zambia side of the falls and checked into the absolute fantasia that is The Royal Livingstone Hotel, where giraffes walked with me to the gym, and zebras milled about by the pool and looked back at my notes for the trip.

All of them are about the same as this, from the last afternoon aboard the train:

I just want to remember this moment. Reading “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in the bar car of the Rovos Rail, chugging along toward Vic Falls, drinking a Negroni, snacking on chili biltong in my linen suit and Kim Jones shirt. A life highlight. How does someone get so lucky?