Staying at Ballantynes B&B waiting for dinner so I thought I’d share my travel experience. Flew out of IAH.

I got my COVID test through Arcpoint labs in Sugarland. They offer the (same) PCR test just $75 more to get it expedited- 2 hrs vs next day. You sign up online, pay, park in front of the lab and they come out to your car. I received my results in under 2 hrs. I went the day before just for peace of mind.

Checking in was the usual SOP. Nothing new. Make a note which ticket stub is for your weapons.

I stayed at the international hotel within the transit area of the airport. Emirates offers free COVID testing for offsite hotels but for me, it was worth it not having to go through security again. Emirates insisted the 48 hrs and transit status would have remained had I stayed at their offsite hotel. Now I could have gotten my test the same day, went to the offsite hotel and stayed within the 48 hr window for my connection but peace of mind (and no second security) was worth the couple hundred bucks. Contrary to what I was told by TWG the Dept of Health person at Harare could not have known the transit status/location of my overnight stay. As long as you make your connection within 48 hrs it doesn’t matter where you stay.

Once again, it is 48 hrs from embarkation not cumulative to step on Zimbabwe soil. So it is up to your itinerary as to which flight is within the 48 hrs and which hotel to stay at.


FYI I approach the DBX connecting gate counter well before boarding to check in and let them know I’m traveling with firearms (they’ll ask for the ticket stub for the firearms). They will call baggage and check them in otherwise you may be standing at the gate for a while.

You can download the Zim firearms permit. Don’t forget it is in triplicate and you will need to provide a local address on the form. You can always use the address on your letter of invite.

You will get two forms on the plane. One is a health questionnaire the other a data form. You will also have to fill out the small immigration form on the right wall as it wasn’t provided onboard.

Since the 48 hrs is from time to embarkation I paper clipped my first boarding pass to the COVID test results, their health questionnaire and a copy of my COVID vaccine just for good measure.

I made 4 copies of my documents.

Something new- immigration asked to see my return ticket. You may want to print that out. I just showed them my return flights on my Emirates app.

Great intel FMC. I made a trip to Uganda last month on Emirates from IAH and had zero issues.

Wish I was going with you Frank. Have a great time!

Go kill something big....

And then share pics...

Good luck on your hunt Frank.

Good hunting Doc!

Thanks for the update Doc. Good luck.

Excellent info, thanks for that! My daughter and I leave for Zim May 22, so this is very valuable.