A single-car train that seats 22 people seems an “unlikely safari vehicle”, says BBC Travel, but Zimbabwe’s 80km Elephant Express offers an “utterly unique” animal-spotting experience. Rather than searching for the great beasts in a 4x4 or on foot, passengers happen upon them randomly, “adding a sense of serendipity to the wonder”. Zimbabwe’s railways were originally built to connect the landlocked country’s rich mines and farmland with coastal ports in neighbouring Mozambique and South Africa. This particular stretch of track was laid in 1904, meaning there’s not an animal anywhere which “remembers a landscape without the trains”. It’s not unusual to meet lions “napping on the sun-baked rails or using them for cover when hunting on the plains”
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