This rare, handcrafted walking and canoeing safari explores the spectacular scenery of the game-rich savannah and floodplains of Zambia’s South Luangwa Valley, the Lower Zambezi, and Kafue National Park, all based from some of the continent’s most fetching and reposeful camps and small lodges.

We begin at the Mfuwe Lodge in the South Luangwa Valley, at the dramatic tail end of the Great Rift Valley. One of southern Africa’s wildest wildernesses, the Luangwa River and Valley host huge concentrations of game, including elephant, buffalo, leopard, lion, giraffe, hippo, and over 400 species of birds. We spend our time in the South Luangwa exploring the national park on foot, as well as in open four-wheel-drive vehicles. Our walks allow us to get intimate with the landscape and its inhabitants, from a meandering line of termites to a bee-eater snaring a butterfly and on to a family of elephants frolicking in a lagoon.

Continuing our safari, we head to the Lower Zambezi National Park, where we stay at the lovely, family-owned Chiawa Camp. Wrapping up with a flourish, we helicopter to three nights at the brilliantly conceived, intimate (a maximum of 12 guests) Shumba Lodge, in the center of the Busanga Plains in the vast and quite uncrowded (by humans) Kafue National Park. Shumba’s pool is a fine place for lazing and gazing at a full complement of African wildlife as it drifts and jaunts and gallops and stalks nearby.

Day 1: arrive in Lusaka, fly to South Luangwa Valley, Mfuwe Lodge • Day 2: drive to Luangwa bush camp • Days 3 - 6: South Luangwa Valley, bush camp • Day 7: drive back to Mfuwe • Day 8: fly to Lower Zambezi • Days 9 & 10: Lower Zambezi • Day 11: charter flight to Kafue National Park, helicopter to Shumba Lodge • Days 12 & 13: Kafue National Park • Day 14: fly to Lusaka • Day 15: depart on homeward flights.

Victoria Falls Extension is available for this trip

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