Things to do in Harare

Culture · Mbare

The country's largest market: produce trucked in from every province, secondhand clothes by the bale, and the long-distance bus terminus next door.

Local tip: Go in the morning with a Zimbabwean colleague the first time, carry small notes and nothing in your back pocket. It is the single best hour you can spend understanding how the country actually feeds itself.

Nature · Hillside, south-east of the centre

Two hundred and sixty-odd hectares of miombo woodland inside the city, with giraffe, zebra and eland grazing about ten minutes from the CBD.

Local tip: Almost no visitor knows it exists. Walk or ride the trails early, then have breakfast at the tea garden. That a genuine game area survives inside Harare is a fact about this city nowhere else quite matches.

Culture · Beside Harare Gardens

The permanent home of Zimbabwean stone sculpture — the Shona sculpture movement is the country's most internationally recognised art form.

Local tip: The sculpture garden is the real collection. Go on a weekday when it is quiet, and if a piece stops you, ask about the artist — many are still working and several studios take visitors.

Landmark · Epworth, east of the city

The granite formations that appear on Zimbabwe's banknotes, balanced improbably on each other on the edge of a dense settlement.

Local tip: Bring a note with you and hold it up against the rocks — that is the point of the trip. Go with someone local; it sits inside a residential area rather than a park.

Neighborhood · North-west of the centre

Jacaranda streets, the Avondale flea market, cafés and the closest thing Harare has to a walkable district.

Local tip: The Sunday market at Doon Estate and the Avondale shops are where the city's creative and NGO crowd overlap. Good place to find a flat share and better people to ask about landlords.

Nature · About 30 km north

A vast granite whaleback you can walk up in twenty minutes, with San rock paintings in a cave near the summit and the whole Highveld laid out below.

Local tip: Do it in the late afternoon in the dry season and take water — there is no shade on the rock. Pay the entry fee at the gate rather than to anyone who offers to guide you on the road.