Month by month
Queen Elizabeth in November
November has the coolest afternoons of the year, the last of the low-season rates and the last of the thinned flight schedule. It is also the only one of the four awkward travel months that stands on its own.
If you only want the answer
November averages 188 mm over eight rain days and 26.6 degrees in the afternoon, the lowest daytime average on the record. It is the fourth and last month in which Aerolink drops to one flight each way per day, and it is low season at the lodges that publish one, which makes it the cheapest month in the second half of the year.
Queen Elizabeth weather in November: the coolest afternoons, and fewer wet days than the total suggests
At 26.6 degrees, November has the lowest average daytime maximum of the twelve months, nearly three degrees below February's 29.4. The rainfall total of 188 mm is high, and the number next to it is the one people miss: it falls across eight rain days, against October's thirteen and April's eighteen. November rain arrives in fewer, heavier episodes, which leaves more usable daylight between them than the monthly figure implies.
It is still the third wettest month of the year, behind April and October. Long grass, soft ground and dispersed game all apply. What November offers is the mildest conditions of the year for anything that puts you outside the vehicle, and the tariff prices those cheaply: birding and day walks are $25 per person and cycling is $30.
The fourth difficult month, and the last one
Aerolink runs flights A8 117/118, A8 121/122 and A8 131/132 all year except in March, April, May and November. November is the only one of those four that is separated from the others, sitting five months after May and one month before December brings the full schedule back. That catches people who think of the reduced timetable as a spring phenomenon.
The roads run on a similar cycle. March, April, May and November are the months in which the unsealed network is at its worst, which means the flight restriction and the road difficulty coincide precisely. If a trip depends on reaching the Ishasha sector, which lies about 109 km from Mweya over substantial murram and takes two and a half to three hours, and longer in a month like this, build in a spare day or plan to sleep in the south.
The cheapest month after May
Pumba Safari Cottages and Topi Lodge both run their low season in April, May and November, which puts a double room at Pumba at $80 bed and breakfast against $100 standard, and a double at Topi at $140 against $160. The River Station and Honey Bear Bush Camp count November in their green season, at $990 and $700 per person against $1,760 and $925 in high season.
UWA's own charges are the same as in any other month: $40 per person per 24 hours to enter, $30 per person for the Kazinga Channel launch, $10 per vehicle per day for a self-drive game drive, $200 for lion tracking in the Kasenyi plains plus a $10 community fee. That last one rises to $500 from 1 January 2027, so a November 2026 trip catches the old rate.