Africa | Zambia | Wild Zambia Safari

Your African adventure begins as you are met and warmly greeted at the Livingstone airport in Zambia. Transfer to Chundukwa River Lodge, where rooms look out to the Zambezi River. This afternoon take a boat cruise on the upper Zambezi where you can watch the sunset with a drink in hand.

About Chundukwa River Lodge

Resting upstream from Victoria Falls, Chundukwa River Lodge prides itself on providing great home-cooked food incorporating the freshest Zambian produce. These unique treehouse suites blend naturally with the Waterberry trees that adorn the riverbanks. Perched on stilts, each room overlooks the river edge allowing guests to fall asleep at night to the gurgling sounds of the Zambezi River below. In the morning, look out your window to the breathtaking view of Zambia safari lands. This region of the country benefits from abundant sightings of hippo, elephant, and varied birdlife. Enjoy a delicious meal around a large table to allow for great conversation or retreat to an intimate dining experience in private dining areas. In the heat of the day, guests enjoy the refreshing plunge pool on the riverside allowing for ultimate relaxation while observing nearby wildlife.

About Tongabezi Lodge

Tongabezi is a unique luxury lodge on the banks of the Zambezi River, 20 kilometers upstream from the Victoria Falls. Accommodation is in thatched cottages and spacious open plan stone and thatch houses, all with en suite bathrooms and a view of the river. The cottages have a private lounge and spacious bedrooms with a mosquito net canopy and each has a personal valet assigned to the room. Tongabezi is an ideal base for visiting Victoria Falls and offers a wide variety of activities including sunset and sunrise boat trips, a candlelit dinner while floating on the Zambezi, and a visit to the Zambian side of the Falls among others. Lodge facilities include a dining, bar, and lounge area under thatch, swimming pool, a curio shop selling local quality products, fishing, and canoeing.

Enjoy a guided tour of Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, which straddles the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Watch as the mighty Zambezi River, forced through a fissure, cascades down 300 hundred vertical feet. The spray from the falls can be powerful from May – July so be prepared for getting wet. The afternoon is at your leisure to relax or partake in any additional active adventure tours in the area such as a helicopter or microlight flight over the falls, white water rafting trip featuring Class V rapids, canoeing above the Falls, parasailing, or horseback riding (not included, at additional cost, and at your own risk).

Depart Livingstone and fly to Lusaka for your connecting flight to Lusaka and on to the Royal Airstrip in the Lower Zambezi National Park. Declared a national park in 1983, Lower Zambezi lies across the river from Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park and was a private game reserve of Zambia’s president. With nearly 1,500 square miles of habitat, not counting the much larger game management areas that surround the park, there is plenty of room for wildlife to roam and very few people with whom to share your game viewing. Upon arrival, you’ll be met and transferred to your tent overlooking the Zambezi.

Spend two days exploring the Zambezi National Park with a naturalist guide. Take a canoeing excursion with the Zambian mountains as a backdrop to look for hippos, crocodiles, elephants, and plains game as they come down to the water to drink. Opt for a morning or full-day game drive in the park and watch for lions, buffalo, antelopes, wild dogs, and leopards in trees. Night game drives reveal nocturnal creatures such as porcupines, civet, genet, and honey badgers. If you like to fish (or even if you don’t!) you should try tiger fishing. This is the best location in all of Africa to catch these feisty fish, as it’s always a thrill to catch your first one.

Spend two days exploring the Zambezi National Park with a naturalist guide. Take a canoeing excursion with the Zambian mountains as a backdrop to look for hippos, crocodiles, elephants, and plains game as they come down to the water to drink. Opt for a morning or full-day game drive in the park and watch for lions, buffalo, antelopes, wild dogs, and leopards in trees. Night game drives reveal nocturnal creatures such as porcupines, civet, genet, and honey badgers. If you like to fish (or even if you don’t!) you should try tiger fishing. This is the best location in all of Africa to catch these feisty fish, as it’s always a thrill to catch your first one.

Depart from the Lower Zambezi airstrip and connect through Lusaka to Mfuwe and the South Luangwa Valley, enjoying a bird’s eye view of the dramatic rift valley escarpment topography. Arriving in Mfuwe you’ll be met by your expert guide and delve deeper into the South Luangwa National Park. This area is Zambia’s premier National Park and one of the greatest wildlife sanctuaries in the world. The concentration of game along the Luangwa River and its associated ox-bow lagoons is amongst the most intense anywhere in Africa – it is truly a well-preserved wilderness. The flat, wildlife-rich environs of the South Luangwa are ideal for walking safaris and the guides are unmatched in their tracking and wildlife knowledge. Your guides at Luwi and Nsolo were recently voted as the best walking safari guides in Africa and follow in a great tradition of South Luangwa guides who know the land intimately as well as the wildlife who lives there. Take an afternoon game drive on your way to camp and overnight at intimate Luwi Bushcamp, where four tents sit under the shade of huge mahogany trees on the seasonal Luwi River.

After early morning coffee around the campfire set off with your guide and armed tracker on a morning walking safari* looking for elephant herds and other resident wildlife. Investigate tracks and watch for warthogs, reedbuck, and impala. The Luwi area is also famous for its lions and the thrill of tracking them on foot is an experience not to be missed. After about three to four hours of easy walking return to camp for a hearty brunch and spend the heat of the day in the shade, resting as the wildlife does. In the afternoon head out on another walking safari or game drive, looking for elephant herds and watching hippos and crocodiles from the camp’s hide, where you’ll finish the day with a sundowner. *Note: While the areas surrounding the camps are prime for safari by foot a specially outfitted safari vehicle is available to conduct game drives and access other areas of the national park.

Another walking safari begins this morning and after brunch, you’ll pack up and begin the five-mile walk from Luwi Bushcamp to Nsolo Bushcamp*. Wild dogs have denned between Luwi and Nsolo for the last six years and chances of seeing these elusive creatures are high. Leopard also abounds in the area as well as herds of buffalo, Thornicroft giraffe, and Cookson’s wildebeest, the last two endemics to the South Luangwa National Park. Overnight in one of four reed and thatch chalets at Nsolo Bushcamp.

*Note: The transfer between camps can also be done by safari vehicle if preferred. Up for an adventure? Ask about the Return to the Wild activity. It’s an evening spent fly-camping under the stars in the middle of the Park. Campfires warn off nocturnal visitors while a scout and a guide keep watch. Must be booked in advance, the additional cost of $350 per person.

A final day of walking safaris takes us along the Luwi River. Various lion pride territories overlap in this area. The cats use the dry riverbed as a thoroughfare and a means not only of locating their prey as they come to drink but also of locating their rivals who must be warned to stay away. Look for prints in the sand and take the time to listen for calls of baboons as they alert their troop to the presence of a predator. Soak in the sounds, smells, and atmosphere of the bush as you become a part of it. Enjoy the last Luangwa sundowner this evening before retiring to your room at Nsolo Bushcamp.

Say goodbye to Zambia as you transfer this morning to Mfuwe for your flight to Lusaka (included) connecting to your international departing flight. Ask about an extension to cosmopolitan Cape Town, Lake Malawi, Botswana’s Okavango Delta, or the mountain gorillas of Rwanda.