Zambia: South Luangwa National Park
Zambia's most famous safari destination, South Luangwa National Park is tropical, wild, beautiful and full of game. Situated in a wide rift valley, the park is flanked by the Muchinga escarpment to the west and the meandering Luangwa River to the east.
One of the places I really wished to visit in Zambia, was South Luangwa National Park, which is in the southeast of the country. It was some distance from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, literally a 12-hour drive on some not-so-good road. Flying there was also expensive as the local airport, Mfuwe, was only serviced by small airlines most flying bush planes. So, after going to and fro, I decided the best option was to drive across the border from Malawi. I had organized with the Avis office in Lilongwe to take the rental car across the border, and they provided what I hoped was the paperwork we needed, which included an Interpol report, a letter from Avis Malawi giving us permission to take the car into Zambia and a copy of the vehicle logbook.
It was about a 90-minute drive to the Mchinji border post. Everything, like most everywhere else, at the border post was chaotic, to say the least. We parked up outside what appeared to be the Malawian border control, and no sooner had we gotten out of the car than we were swarmed by people trying to sell us SIM cards, exchange money and goodness knows what else! Eventually, we managed to ward off most of the swarm, but there were two or three who continued to follow us. They promised a ‘one-stop’ shop, but it was not quite so simple. The first part was easy, going through immigration – our passports were stamped and that was done. Next, we had to do all the formalities to take the car across the border. I guess the trafficking of stolen cars is a big issue! There was another one of those large books we had seen across Africa to record things into – I assume this is a by-product of these countries’ colonial past. We had to enter all our info and then everything about the car, including the chassis number, gross weight and engine size. Then we got a form from the officer on the desk to complete, with exactly the same info – this time we had to estimate the value of the vehicle. Of course, we had no idea of the costs of vehicles in Malawi, so we made it up! We handed the completed form in, so the officer disappeared with it and typed the details into a computer. Then she sent us across to the cashier to pay our 20,000 Malawian kwachas. We then came back with the receipt of payment, gave this to the officer who disappeared again, did some jiggery-pokery on the computer and came back with a stamped form. This somehow all took about 1-hour.
We were now free to leave Malawi – so we could drive a 100-yards down the road to the Zambian immigration post. Our three friends followed us – one of them had been helpful in guiding us through the formalities in the Malawian post. Before we went anywhere, we had to go through the health checkpoint, and show our covid vaccine records. There was a bit of a kafuffle over our CDC records card, the lady insisted we had something with a barcode on. Luckily, I had registered on the African CDC site which gave us a QR code – but she never checked the barcode or even asked to see our passports to see that the vaccine card matched our ID. What the heck! From there, our new friends guided us into another building where we got our visas authenticated and passports stamped.
So far, so good! Then we had to go through the formalities of getting our vehicle approved for importation – more large books to handwrite all the information into and more forms to complete. It seemed to take forever. Once this was done, all we had to do was get car insurance for Zambia and pay for the carbon tax.
This is when we discovered that the most helpful of the men who had been helping was actually an insurance salesman! He took across to a small office to do all the necessary paperwork, followed by the other two men. The cost of the insurance and carbon tax was $68 USD, but we had to pay this in Zambian kwacha. There was an ATM, but we were told this was not working (I am not sure this was actually true – I would normally have tried to find out but by this time I was overwhelmed by the whole process). The other two men turned out to be money changers, so we changed some US dollars into Zambian kwacha (probably getting a lousy deal) and paid our fees. We went outside and our insurance man friend stuck a new sticker on the windscreen of the car, but we were not done yet. We had to complete the vehicle immigration process, which meant standing in line to see a different agent, who I am not what his exact role was. Our man paid him the money for a carbon tax. This agent then said there was a problem with our paperwork, we didn’t have the original vehicle logbook. Of course, no rental vehicle has the original logbook, but the rental company should have stamped and signed the logbook copy. So, we had to walk back to the Malawian side to the makeshift police station. Our insurance man friend seemed to know the officers here, and after a bit of chit chat one man, who seemed to be quite senior, disappeared off with our logbook copy (I hate letting people wander off with our official documents) and a few minutes later he reappeared with it signed. Now back to the Zambian border post. We returned to see our agent friend, who seemed busy not doing much apart from tapping away at a computer. So, we sat down and waited. Luckily, there was a TV in the room showing an English Premier League match (there always seems to be football on a screen in the border posts in Africa). Eventually, the agent got around to us – and we were given a document to use on our return and a handwritten slip of paper, which we had to give to the man at the gate to let us into Zambia. Two and a half hours after we arrived, we were finally on the road in Zambia.
The rest of the journey was straightforward. We stopped off en route to get a SIM, which with all the registration, took around half an hour. So, it was late afternoon before we arrived at our home for the next 3-nights, Track and Trail River Camp, which is close to the entrance of the South Luangwa National Park. On arrival, we were met by the owners, who gave us a tour of our bungalow, which overlooked the Luangwa River. It was amazing. The bungalow was huge with a large bed, a small sitting area and a huge shower with a clawfoot bath. Not only was the bungalow enormous it was beautifully decorated with unique furnishing and wall ornaments (mostly interesting shaped natural wood hung on the wall – which was better than it sounds!)
With no activities planned, we had the chance to relax. We went down to dinner early, to enjoy the view of the sun setting over the river, which was heavily populated with hippos and crocs. As we were sitting there enjoying a beer, we noticed a group of elephants on the far bank. Two of the younger males got into a tussle. It was fascinating to watch at they clashed tusks and pushed each other around. After a while the rest of the herd came into sight, and after a few minutes of grazing they crossed the river, which is wide, but very shallow this time of year. Having got our wildlife fix we settled down for dinner. The dinner they served us was incredible – and completely vegan.

The next morning, we woke very early for our morning game drive. Our sleep had been disturbed throughout the night by the calls of hippos, which sounded like they were very close by. Throwing on our clothes, including coats and hats, as we knew how cold the morning game drives can be, we were collected by the night watchman and escorted to the main lodge for a quick breakfast before heading out.
After breakfast, we hooked up with our guide and driver. We once again had the whole game drive vehicle to ourselves. It was only a little way from Track and Trail to the Park entrance. For the next 3-hours we made our way through the South Luangwa National Park, which is one of the prettiest places we have visited so far on our Africa tour. There are a lot of tall trees, set in what almost feels like parkland. You could be visiting Downtown Abbey – well sort of! Scatted throughout the Park are thicker areas of bush, where some of the animals like to hide. There are also a lot of watering holes as well as the South Luangwa River. There was a lot of antelope, including the ubiquitous impala, kudu and puku (which we had not seen anywhere before) and zebras. As we drove through one of the open pastures, we came across a small group of hyenas lurking in the bushes, who then came out into the open, which was a fantastic opportunity to get some great photographs.




We also got to see the Thornicroft giraffes, which are endemic to South Luangwa, and several elephants.



One of the tell-tale signs of a big cat kill is vultures circling above a specific area – and we could see many vultures circling just in front of us, so we set off to explore. It was clear the kill was not that close to the road, so our driver decided to do a bit of ‘off-roading’. It was incredibly bumpy, but we made it. The lions had left the scene but there were several vultures on the ground gorging on a carcass as well as a big hyena happily crunching on some bones. A good day for hyena spotting!


As our game drive was coming to an end our spotted a couple of Land Cruisers close to a bush, and as we drove closer, we could see it was a small pride of lions, made up of two females and a young male. They had obviously eaten as their stomachs were distended and they were lying down to digest their meal. We were able to get close to them – which was lovely. One of the unwritten rules of South Luangwa is that no more than five tour vehicles should get close to the wildlife and that they should only stay five minutes. We liked this rule and were happy to move on when our time was up. Luckily, we only had to wait a few more minutes before we found another, larger pride, who had also just eaten and was resting.



For the evening game drive, we were joined by a spotter. Unlike a lot of other places, we had visited the evening game drive would carry on after it got dark, so you end up driving through the bush in the dark, where you get to see the animals that are active at night. Our driver took us on a different route through the park, taking roads that largely followed the Luangwa River.







Suddenly, our driver got a call on the radio, apparently, a leopard was active right back where we had started our game drive. We agreed to head back, and off we flew, literally! Nothing casual or relaxing about this drive as we bumped along, thwacking trees as we went past … it was very exhilarating even if we missed seeing the leopard. About 10 minutes later we reached one of the areas where there are gullies running through the park, which the leopards like to use to hide from their prey. There were a couple of LandCruisers parked up, so we pulled over. A few seconds later a beautiful leopard climbed out of the gully, right next to us, and just sat there for a couple of minutes, looking around, before disappearing off into the bush. Stunning. By now the sun had gone down and time was running out for sundowners, so our driver found us a quiet spot right on the edge of the river (a safe distance from hippos and crocs) to enjoy our gin and tonic.


DAY TWO
Last night was a very interesting one. The sounds of the hippos were much closer than the night before. In the very early hours of the morning, when it was still very dark, we heard a commotion outside our rooms. I tried to ignore it, but Karen was very insistent that we got up. We peeked out of the window of our room. What we saw was a couple of hippos, munching, loudly, on the grass right outside our chalet. One of them was only six feet or so from where we were standing. Knowing how dangerous hippos are, we stayed inside, but our neighbours were seemingly outside taking photographs with their flashes on. Crazy!
We were very grateful when the nightwatchman hailed us from outside, indicating the coast was clear, at 5:30 am to go to breakfast before our dawn game drive.
Finishing our light breakfast, we headed out into the park. South Luangwa is beautiful in the mornings, and as we travelled along, we got to see giraffes and plenty of antelope. Our journey eventually took us down by the river again, where our driver noticed a small group of impalas who were very alert and staring at some bushes, so we went over to investigate. As we pulled up, we saw what had caught their interest. Only a few feet from where they were standing watching was a leopard, who was munching on a kill, which our driver identified as a white-tailed mongoose. This is not their usual prey, as apparently, they smell bad, but our driver suspected it was an opportunistic kill when the unlucky mongoose and leopard ran into each other in the bush.





The leopard was an amazing spot, almost surpassed by finding a female hyena with her two pups hiding in the shade of a tree. It was very unusual to find them out in the open as they usually hide in their underground dens to protect the pups from other predators. It was lovely to watch as the mother, who obviously very tired, held her babes to the ground under her outstretched legs, giving them only enough wiggle room to reach her teats to suckle. There was only us and one other truck watching this domestic scene. Eventually, they pulled away leaving us alone. Not long after the other truck had left, the pups escaped the hold of their mother and were running around – which was lovely to see. There were the highlights of the morning drive, and we were soon back at Track and Trail for lunch and a siesta.





For the afternoon drive, we were joined by a spotter. We set off hoping to get some great wildlife viewings and hopefully a leopard or lion. It was another great evening; the light was perfect for wildlife viewing and photography. We did get to elephants, giraffes and a couple of hyenas who had obviously just eaten an enormous meal and could barely move. But no big cats! We did have a lovely time with our sundowners – back to the gin and tonics – before heading out for some night-time cruising … still nothing much to see apart from a couple of elephants.
We headed back to the Track and Trail for dinner. There was only us staying the night, so we had the whole restaurant to ourselves, which was little lonely truth be known.






About South Luangwa National Park
The country of Zambia lies landlocked in the tropics, located at the northern edge of the region known as ‘southern Africa.’ Shaped like a butterfly and covering about 752,610 square kilometres, Zambia is roughly three times the size of the United Kingdom. South Luangwa National Park – located in eastern Zambia – was declared a national park in 1972. As a protected game reserve for over 65 years before that, the park was never subjected to the degradation of unregulated mass tourism, thus sustaining its pristine wilderness. It was here, in this park, that the now famous ‘walking safari’ originated, when Norman Carr, who was originally a ranger in the game reserves in the 1940s, began to operate wilderness safaris in the area. Carr recognized the limitations of the early format of hunting safaris and developed the walking safari to increase tourism to the area, as well as species conservation.
The Luangwa River is the most intact major river system in Africa and is the lifeblood of this 9059 km2 Park. The Park hosts a wide variety of wildlife, birds and vegetation.
The changing seasons add to the Park’s richness, ranging from; dry, bare bushveld in the winter, to a lush, green wonderland in the summer months. There are 60 different animal species and over 400 different bird species in South Luangwa National Park. The only notable exception is the rhino, sadly poached to extinction.
About 400 of Zambia’s 732 species of birds appear in the Park, including 39 birds of prey and 47 migrant species.
Planning your visit to South Luangwa National Park
By Air
You can reach Mfuwe Airport, which is close to South Luangwa by a charter flight from Lilongwe in Malawi. The provider is Fly Ulendo. The return fare will be about $600. This will be a bush plane, so there will be a limit as to how much luggage you can take.
Alternatively, you can fly to Mfuwe International Airport on Proflight Zambia, the country’s national airline, from Lusaka. In the months of May through November, there are three flights a day to Mfuwe (the flight time is 1 hour & 10 minutes), ranging in cost from $125 to $450 one way
By Bus
To get to South Luangwa, you have to take a bus from the central Lusaka bus station.
In the past, you had to take a bus to the border town of Chipata and then transfer to another bus that would take you to Mfuwe, the park’s nearest village.
Thankfully now there are buses that go directly to Mfuwe.
It is possible to get to South Luangwa either by driving yourself or by a private transfer from Lusaka. The drive is long, upwards of eight hours and the road conditions are not always the best.
We decided to drive ourselves to South Lungwa from Lilongwe in Malawi. It is a much shorter drive than from Lusaka, but you have to cross the border between Malawi and Zambia. This can take a long time, especially going into Zambia with a rental car – it took us nearly 3 hours in that direction. Coming back was a lot quicker!
Best time to visit Zambia
The best time to visit Zambia is during the dry season between June and November. The skies are cobalt blue, the days are hot, and the nights are cool. Temperatures can sit anywhere from 23°C to 36°C across the country. Wildlife-spotting opportunities are plentiful during this time too.
Victoria Falls makes a great option to combine with a safari, but can be visited on its own when the camps are closed briefly in the wet season between January and February. This is when the ‘smoke that thunders’ lives up to its name. This name was coined by the Kalolo-Lozi people, who could see the enormous clouds of mist and spray from a distance.
Rain does fall outside of the wettest months, but this is compensated for by minimal crowds and top-quality birdwatching, plus temperatures remain warm.
Zambia- Month-by-Month
January is a good time to see Victoria Falls, but is very wet elsewhere and most camps are closed.
Events & Festivals
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Carmine bee-eaters arrive: This month sees the carmine bee-eaters arrive, with flocks of hundreds nesting in river banks, providing a thrilling spectacle of colour and sound in South Luangwa National Park
- Great bat migration: Experience the world’s largest mammalian migration as millions of bats fill the skies in a remote part of Zambia.
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
- Green Season: this is a great time for birdwatchers and walkers, offering beautiful scenery, flocks of migratory birds and hardly any people, as well as amazing value for money
It remains wet throughout February, so it’s a good time to see Victoria Falls, but only a few camps stay open for boating and walking. It’s also a good time for birdwatching.
Events & Festivals
Victoria Falls is at its fullest, sending huge amounts of spray into the air and often obscuring the view of the falls themselves. Some camps are open for boating, and birdwatching is excellent. This time of year offers fantastic value for money and camps are really quiet so there are no crowds.
Events & Festivals
The weather starts to dry up a bit, but rain remains a significant feature of April.
Events & Festivals
A few more camps open up as the rain stops. However, this isn’t the best time to embark on a safari as the ground is still sodden, which makes access difficult.
Events & Festivals
The ground starts to dry out after the rains, making June a lovely time to visit. The rivers are still full and the bush is colourful. The camps have opened and are offering excellent deals, while there are few other visitors to compete for space with.
Once July hits, Zambia kicks into high gear. Temperatures are rising but it stays chilly in the mornings and evenings. All camps are open in all the national parks, with the South Luangwa the best option for game, the Lower Zambezi for river cruises and fishing, and the Kafue for remote wilderness. Victoria Falls is spectacular, without being overly wet.
The hotter weather and drier bush means walking safaris are excellent across the country. This is the prime time of year to combine game viewing and Victoria Falls.
September is a superb time to be on safari. Temperatures in the high 20°Cs make the days pleasant, and the water sources are drying up so animals congregate by the rivers and waterholes. Victoria Falls is not as dramatic as earlier months but is still impressive. Meanwhile, carmine bee-eaters arrive in their thousands to nest in the river banks.
Events & Festivals
The heat increases through October and game viewing is best done early and late in the day to escape the midday temperatures.
The rains arrive in the latter half of the month, but as they are not regular they are not too disruptive and the bonus is seeing dramatic skies with storm clouds building. Temperatures are high and it can be muggy. Some camps close but lots stay open and are great value. You may also be able to see lots of young animals being born.
Events & Festivals
Rains fall regularly, the rivers rise and the bush gets thicker and more colourful. This is an excellent value time to travel.
Events & Festivals
Track & Trail River Camp
For our trip to South Luangwa National Park, I booked us into Track and Trail River camp, which is very close to the main park entrance. The camp has a variety of accommodation options – you can camp there; either in your own tent or you can stop in one of their safari tents. They also have some chalets; 3 River Chalets, 4 Family River Chalets, and 3 Secluded Chalets. We had one of the River Chalets, which was huge and very tastefully decorated. Our chalet also had a small outdoor patio which overlooked the South Luangwa River.
The camp is also a haven for animals. During the day there are bushbucks, monkeys, baboons, warthogs and guinea fowl everywhere. There are also frequent visits by elephants – which require some care when you come across them. At night hippos frequently roam the camp, and they advise you to have a security guard help you to and from your room after dark.
Track & Trail also has its own safari vehicles, so it is very easy to get a game drive in the park with a qualified driver and guide. The camp is owned by renowned photographer Peter Geraerdts and his wife Kirsten Gottenkieny. As well as regular safaris they offer specialist photographic safaris led by Peter.
When we stayed we opted for the full-board package. The food was incredible and they catered for our vegan diet!





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Mexico
Are you planning to visit Mexico? Check if you need a power plug adapter or voltage converter for the power sockets (outlets) used in Mexico.
The following information is for travellers living in the United States of America. I live in another country.
You don’t need a power plug adapter in Mexico when living in the United States of America.
Electricity in Mexico
In Mexico the power plugs and sockets are of type A and B. The standard voltage is 127 V and the standard frequency is 60 Hz.
Power plug adapter needed in Mexico?
In Mexico the power plugs and sockets are of type A and B. When living in the United States of America you don’t need a power plug adapter in Mexico. Your power plugs fit.
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Type A: This socket has no alternative plugs | Type B: This socket also works with plug A |