18 places to stay
Eighteen places to stay in and around Matobo, from a $12 ZimParks pitch at Maleme Dam to fully inclusive lodges in the granite, plus the Bulawayo guesthouses that sell themselves as near the park. The line under each name says whether it is inside the park, outside it, or not settled.
Land bought by the Waddy family in 1947 and held by four generations since. The camp sits on a granite ridge bordering the park, reached by 4x4, with a natural rock pool, bar, library and boma. Concession drives and walks are priced separately by the camp, and park and monument fees come on top of the rate.
Dates and availability on Booking.com ↗
From $295 pp, fully inclusive
A family-owned lodge built in 1994 among the kopjes near World's View, and still run by the same family. It describes itself as the only private lodge inside the national park boundary; other listings put it on the edge, and ZimParks has not confirmed either, so we mark the boundary as unconfirmed. It is not part of any hotel group. Seventeen chalets around a rock pool, restaurant and bar, with rock-art walks, World's View at sunset, village visits and drives sold by the lodge.
From $154 pp sharing, B&B
The first private lodge in the Matopos, opened in 1990 and run by a Zimbabwean family business that also has camps at Hwange. Nine rooms are built into the boulders, with a separate three-bedroom villa for private use. Earlier versions of its website described it as within the national park; its current site says it sits on a private concession inside the World Heritage landscape. We mark the boundary as unconfirmed.
From $447 pp sharing, fully inclusive
Big Cave's campsite, about 2 km from the park boundary: pitches with their own 220-volt point and solar backup, free wifi, braai with firewood, a bar and a laundry area, plus five simple huts on shared ablutions. You pay the park fee only on the days you drive into the park.
From $18 per person camping
A lodge opened in 1992 on a farm beside the park, with two pools, rooms and camping. Read the reviews before you book: one listing scores it well, while a December 2023 review described a dilapidated, empty lodge. Its site footer dates from 2023 and game drives are still marked coming soon.
Dates and availability on Booking.com ↗
From $70 pp sharing, B&B
A former farm homestead turned into a restaurant, bar and reception in 1996, now with twelve cottages and a campsite on a private reserve on the park boundary. The lodge was previously called Granite Ridge. Reviews describe it as family-owned; the lodge's site does not say. The rates on its site are dated 2025.
From $110 pp sharing, dinner, bed & breakfast
Four self-catering lodges and a lawned campsite on family land on the edge of Bulawayo, about half an hour's drive from the park. A town base with a pool rather than a place in the hills.
From $100 a night per lodge
A fully serviced self-catering camp of eight thatched rooms on the Dwala Safaris estate in the eastern hills, run on solar power, with its own anti-poaching team. Walking, biking, estate drives, village tours and rock-art visits are arranged from camp.
Rate on request
A small bed and breakfast in Bulawayo, run by its owners since 1998. It is about 25 km from the World Heritage landscape and sold as near Matopos, which suits a late arrival or an early flight rather than a stay in the hills.
Dates and availability on Booking.com ↗
From about $140 a night, B&B
The ZimParks hub on the east shore of Maleme Dam: self-catering lodges with kitchens, chalets with a fridge and two-plate stove on shared ablutions, and a campsite with braai places. There is a small shop and wifi at reception, but bring your own food. The lodges are being renovated one at a time, which is why the tariff prices renovated and unrenovated units differently, and the shared chalet ablutions draw complaints in reviews.
From $12 per person camping
A game ranch sectioned off in 1995 by a family business, with the lodge added after 1998. Ten rooms, a pool, restaurant and bar, and the widest activity list around the park: drives, walks, birding, hiking to World's View, rock paintings, fishing and horse riding. The booking office is in Hillside, Bulawayo.
From $250 pp, double occupancy
A handful of small ZimParks campsites away from the Maleme hub, with basic shared ablutions. Two further sites, Arboretum and Lake Matopos, are named in one older guide and could not be confirmed as still in use.
No 2026 rate published
A campsite with an A-frame shelter, showers, toilets and a solar geyser, now run by Dwala Safaris. The name used to belong to Shumba Shaba Lodge, whose horse trails are still advertised by booking sites; that lodge no longer trades and its old domain is dead.
Rate on request
Shashani's sister lodge, listed on the same website with the same booking contacts. The site shows a bar, lounge and dining area and says horse riding is available at both lodges, but gives no capacity, rates or exact location, so we cannot say how it sits against the park boundary.
Rate on request
A self-catering house for up to six, known to us only from a Tracks4Africa listing near World's View and Maleme. We found no website, no current listing and no contact details, so we cannot confirm that it still takes guests.
Rate on request
Three self-catering chalets let by an individual host on Airbnb, who describes them as at the gates of the national park. The listing marks wifi and air conditioning as not available.
Dates and availability on Booking.com ↗
Rate on request
A city lodge in Hillside, Bulawayo, about 5 km from the centre, graded by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. Useful for a night in town before or after the park; it offers nothing in the Matobo hills itself.
From $70 a night, room only
A guest lodge in suburban Bulawayo. One booking site places it 4 km from Matobo National Park; the address is in the city, a long way from the park. We found no website of its own, only third-party listings.
Rate on request
Nothing matches all of those at once. Take one filter off and try again.
Only ZimParks' own camps, Maleme and the outlying campsites, are confirmed inside the park and get the $10 sleeping-inside entry rate. Two private lodges, Matobo Hills Lodge and Amalinda, have claimed to be inside; we could not confirm either. For a bed with meals, Farmhouse Lodge starts at $110 per person and Matobo Hills Lodge at $154; fully inclusive, Big Cave starts at $295 and Amalinda at $447.
There is no international safari brand at Matobo. Every private lodge here is an owner or family business, several of them decades old: Big Cave on land held by one family since 1947, Matobo Hills Lodge unchanged in ownership since 1994, Amalinda run by a Zimbabwean family that also has camps at Hwange. Where a site says nothing about who owns it, the listing says ownership unconfirmed rather than guessing.
Every price on this page is in US dollars.
Rates checked in September 2026. Where a lodge publishes its own rate we use it, with its date; for Amalinda, Big Cave and Shashani, which do not print rates on their own sites, the figure comes from a named reseller or agent and says so. The price filter and sort use per-person rates only; lodges that price per room or per unit show their rate in the text but carry no sortable figure. ZimParks entry is extra almost everywhere: $18 per international adult per day driving in, $10 sleeping inside, and the NMMZ ticket for World's View and the caves is $10 on top.
Facilities and activities come from each property's own website, read in September 2026, and for ZimParks from its 2026 tariff. We record only what that source states. A blank means we could not check it, not that it is missing; three places have no website we could read.
