Gaborone, the capital of Botswana and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, despite being relatively close, have very limited options to travel between the two of them.
There currently are only three or four bus companies offering this route, of which only one is reputable.
City Bus offers daily services from Bulawayo to Gaborone, departing Bulawayo at 12:30pm.
Reports of the other companies in Bulawayo is that the journey takes considerably longer on the other options, as they make more stops and mainly act as a delivery service. City Bus is also the only company offering services with onboard charging facilities, toilets, A/C and wi-fi (which isn’t the best, but good for sending some messages and certainly better than nothing, but it does only work when inside Botswana).
It is best to get to the bus stop early and wait since when the bus arrives it quickly drops some people off who have travelled from Harare and will only stop for a maximum of 5 minutes. It also might leave early as 12:30 is the estimated time and since it’s only a stop, if the bus is running early, it doesn’t wait around.
You will need to buy your ticket the day before to guarantee your spot. Do this by heading to the office in the centre of Bulawayo. The office is located at room 108 in the Swift building, directly opposite the Central Police station on Fife Street. You will need to walk up stairs as the office is located on the 3 rd floor.
At time of writing the fare is $40 per person. Children under 5 don’t need to pay but aren’t guaranteed a seat – if you want a seat for a child, you just need to pay for a full fare ticket.
The Journey
The bus makes its first stop in Plumtree, with people getting on and off the bus.
You will then stop at the Zimbabwean/Botswanan border. Exiting Zimbabwe is quick and simple. You just need to get off the bus, go into the immigration/customs office and present your passport and exit card. Exit cards are available inside, but bring your own pen. You do not need to take any of your possessions off the bus. Where the bus stops on the Zimbabwean side also has toilets right there – a good chance to use the facilities.
After everyone is finished with Zimbabwe, the bus will then drive through to the Botswanan side. The Botswanans like to make things a little bit more difficult and getting the whole bus stamped into the country took over an hour, since the huge number of staff mainly sat around doing nothing and asking lots of ridiculous questions. They then make everyone take everything off the bus, pretending they are searching, but in reality not even looking in your bag. You also need to walk through muddy puddles as apparently this will disinfect your shoes, but you actually just get dirty feet. And also nobody cares whether you do in fact walk through the muddy puddles or not.
Once that’s all done, everyone’s had their passport stamped, and all the bags are back on the bus, you’ll start driving through Botswana. Then after 15 minutes you come to another check point of sorts where they again make you walk through a muddy puddle. Most people were just walking around them, but apparently these muddy puddles prevent food and mouth disease.
Your first stop inside Botswana is Francistown, where you’ll let people off and collect people again.
A 10 minute stop for dinner at Palapye. They stop at a local shopping centre which has a proper supermarket with take away snacks, a Nando’s, an alcohol shop and a few ATMs amongst other services. Actually, a pretty good place for a stop.
You then should arrive in Gaborone between 9 and 10pm. The bus station is very central and several hotel options are easily walkable, even when arriving at night.
