Kafue National Park
Expert Reviews (9)
Zambia Parks
Mike is an award-winning wildlife writer, former editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
12 people found this review helpful.
Sleeping giant
I am always surprised that Kafue seldom crops up in discussions of Africa’s top destinations. The park is vast – at 22,500 sq km, it is Zambia’s largest – and its variety of wildlife competes with any on the continent. The reason comes down largely to neglect: a legacy of past poaching and a dilapidated infrastructure means the park has not fared as well as the more famous South Luangwa, and is often overlooked by operators. It is true that many animals, including elephant, are harder to find, and game tends to be more skittish. But on my visit I encountered a rich variety – from the great herds of lechwe splashing through the floodwaters of the Busanga Plains, to the two separate leopards I met padding through the riverine bush along the Lufupa River. Indeed, the park’s many landscapes are so distinct that it can be easier to envisage as a series of small separate parks. In the southern sector, for example, there is a great difference between the thick miombo bush of the Kaingu section, with its rock outcrops and river rapids, and the open savanna of the Nanzhila Plains. Access can be tricky, with long drives over difficult terrain.
Give the place plenty of time: the rewards are a dearth of other visitors and a real sense of exploration. Kafue is the best place in Zambia to find cheetah, wild dog and roan, and has the country’s most impressive bird list.
Nana is a travel writer and author of multiple guidebooks, including the Lonely Planet guides to Africa, Zambia & Malawi and South Africa.
9 people found this review helpful.
Zambia’s older statesman flourishes again
Kafue National Park is the oldest and largest in Zambia, yet one of the least visited, after having suffered years of neglect. Today, the plains teem with wildlife and you’d be hard pressed not to come back with a handful of impressive encounters under your belt.
The Busanga Plains at the northern end of the park are a great place to start. These flood plains provide fertile grazing ground for massive herds of buffalo, and are well known for their prides of lions, as well as cheetah, leopards and wild dog. You’re also likely to encounter buffalo, zebra, hippo and various antelope species.
Best of all you’ll get to experience this wildlife spectacle with few other companions – the fact that the park is wild and undeveloped is one of its major attractions.
Alan is a travel writer and author of over 20 Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the guides to Southern Africa and Zambia & Malawi.
7 people found this review helpful.
Lion Tracking in Kafue
Kafue is one of Zambia's greatest parks - while the tourists jet into South Luangwa in the east, this immense wilderness area in western Zambia is relatively undiscovered and has the best access of any park in the country. The size of a small European country, you'll never see the whole thing (although I'm still trying). The park is divided into north and south by the western highway running from Lusaka out to far flung Mongu. Your chances of seeing big cats like leopards (I saw one on a kill just outside of camp) and lions are high and the park has an extraordinary profusion of birdlife.
Most of my adventures have been in the north where you can stay in unfenced camps (don't go walking by yourself at nights!). I went lion tracking through the bush spending several nervous hours poking around grasslands, an invigorating and slightly intimidating experience. Ultimately we were unsuccessful; however we learned later that a herd of buffalo had been tracking us the whole time!
Christopher is a British travel writer and has contributed to various Fodor's guidebooks and a range of travel magazines.
6 people found this review helpful.
A neglected African giant
Kafue is a bit of a strange place. It’s Zambia’s oldest and largest park and perhaps its most accessible (by road at least); it boasts a staggering number of mammal species including rarities such as roan antelope and African wild dog; there are also more than 500 recorded species of bird including the rare African skimmer. But for all this, the park is largely empty of tourists and tour operators continue to be reluctant to sell it to their clients.
Whilst there are plenty of big predators and elephants around, the sheer size of Kafue ensures it certainly isn’t ever going to be a top “Big 5 in 24 hours” destination. You need time to get the best out of this park. But from my experience, be patient and it will be worth it.
As with Lower Zambezi, a boat trip or guided canoeing safari on the life-giving Kafue River are absolute highlights, particularly in the rocky sections around Kaingu Safari Lodge.
Deep inside this enormous park you’d never think you were just a few hours drive from Zambia’s capital Lusaka. South Luangwa is sometimes referred to as “Africa’s last great wilderness”, but Kafue is perhaps a more worthy recipient of this title.
Philip is an acclaimed travel writer and author of many guidebooks, including the Bradt guides to Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.
6 people found this review helpful.
Africa’s largest national park
Extending over 22,500km², and with more mammal species recorded than any other African reserve, much of this vast park is covered in monotonous miombo woodland, where we found wildlife to be quite sparse. However, it is almost impossible to overstate the quality of Dry season game viewing on the Busanga Floodplain, which extends across the far northwest of the park. Large carnivores likely to be on the plain include lion, cheetah and African wild dog, all of which thrive on a veritable feast of ungulates, such as zebra, wildebeest, buffalo and the rare roan antelope and marsh-dwelling red lechwe. Birdlife on Busanga is fantastic too: the endangered crowned crane and wattled crane are abundant, and other highlights included Stanley’s bustard, coppery-tailed coucal, Hartlaub’s babbler, rosy-throated longclaw and Fulleborn’s longclaw.
Another highlight of northern Kafue are motorboat trips on the Kafue, Lufupa and Lunga Rivers, where we saw plentiful elephant, hippo and crocodile, and have enjoyed an incredible eight African finfoot sightings over five boat outings.
Southern Kafue is less well known than the north, but it too boasts some standout attractions. Lake Itezhi-Tezhi is enclosed by a seasonal floodplain alive with grazers and known for its high concentrations of elephant (we saw a herd of 150, but aggregations of up to 500 are not uncommon). Further south, the little-visited Nanzhila Plains – the closest proper safari destination to Livingstone and Victoria Falls – is famed for its antelope diversity, as well as being the best place to see the black-cheeked lovebird, a lovely parrot-like bird whose global range is restricted to a small part of southwest Zambia. South Kafue is less reliable than Busanga when it comes to predators, but we had a great look at a leopard on the Itezhi-Tezhi floodplain and caught a pair of mating lions at Nanzhila.
Emma is an award-winning travel writer for Rough Guides, National Geographic Traveller, Travel Africa magazine and The Independent.
6 people found this review helpful.
Vast, varied park with a recently-discovered feel
Big enough to gobble up Wales, Kafue encompasses quite a variety of habitats. The most distinctive are those of Busanga Plains in the north, where flat grasslands and miombo woodlands are dotted with island-like clumps of date palms, sausage trees and fig trees. The open landscapes found here make a satisfying contrast to the riverine woodlands of South Luangwa.
Even in October, late in the dry season, there still seemed to be plenty of grazing – enough to support a parade of buffalo and delightful antelopes including oribi, roan, red lechwe and puku. After-dark calls and occasional daytime sightings left us in no doubt that there were plenty of lions about, and there are wild dogs here, too, though sadly these eluded us. This is a park which definitely deserves more visitors than it currently receives.
Ariadne is a renowned African wildlife photographer whose work is featured in many well-known guidebooks and magazines.
6 people found this review helpful.
The vast wilderness of Kafue
Kafue is huge – the size of a small country. It’s known for its incredible biodiversity – 152 mammal species have been recorded. Depending on where you stay in the park, you’ll have a very different experience. Three areas really stand out for me. We went to the Nanzhila Plains in the far south of the park to find the black-cheeked lovebird – one of only two birds endemic to the country. Our search proved to be easy as we saw several flocks of these charismatic parrots fluttering from perch to perch. We would have been happy with just this, but we saw much more in this underutilized part of the park, including a herd of sable antelope and a mating pair of lions. What we didn’t see was other tourists. North from here, I also loved spending time at Lake Itezhi-tezhi. The floodplains of this large body of water were teeming with wildlife including big herds of buffalo, zebras, impalas and pukus. Elephants were everywhere. We spent time with a herd, counting over 150, but even bigger super herds up to 300 elephants are known to form here. My favorite area is the Busanga Plains. The vast open floodplains become totally inaccessible in the wet season, but in the dry season they are known for superb predator sightings. Lions are particularly easy to spot, and this is a good place for cheetahs too. My highlight was spending time with ten wild dog pups. Left without supervision while the adults went hunting, these fearless little bundles of joy put on a great show for us.
Brian is an award winning travel writer, author of safari books and regular contributor to magazines such as BBC Wildlife and Travel Africa.
4 people found this review helpful.
Zambia’s biggest wildlife stronghold
Imagine a wilderness the size of Wales and you begin to get a feeling of what Kafue is like. It’s one of the biggest parks in the world and is criss-crossed with rivers, including the wide Kafue River itself with its shady banks and hippo pools.
The road from Lusaka to Kaoma cuts through the park from east to west, and it is the northern sector that attracts the most visitors. Lufupa Lodge, a no-frills establishment at the confluence of the Lufupa and Kafue rivers, has a good reputation for finding leopards on night drives; but if it’s lions you want you must head for the Busanga Plains in the far northwest of the park. When the floods recede at the beginning of the dry season Busanga resembles the Serengeti, but with islands of fig trees instead of granite kopjes and huge numbers of birds, including crowned and wattled cranes. On my last visit I saw cheetah here, too, and with luck you should also find roan and sable antelope.
Harriet is a zoologist with more than 20 years’ experience. She has the privilege of working with the world’s top wildlife photographers and photo-guides.
Vast - But Game Viewing Can Be Challenging
Kafue is huge - Zambia’s largest national park, bisected by the Great West Road, dividing the park into the north and southern sections. The landscapes are varied, with the permanent Kafue River, vast tracts of miobo woodland, and in the far north the Busanga Swamps.
It is home to an incredible diversity of wildlife, including 21 species of antelope. Control measures are in place to reduce Kafue’s tse tse fly problem.
In the past, Kafue had little investment, and experienced considerable poaching and human encroachment. However for the last five years, there has been considerable investment and the park is slowly recovering with huge potential, although some of the wildlife remains wary of vehicles, especially the elephants.
There are a range of small lodges and camps, some of which offer boat trips on the river. To get the most of the park, you will no doubt see more with a local guide who knows the area than you would self-driving.
Kafue has tremendous tourism potential and will hopefully emerge as a premier safari destination.
Safari Tours to Kafue NP
-
![11-Day Best of Zambia's Wildlife Safari]()
11-Day Best of Zambia's Wildlife Safari
$12,927 to $15,440 pp (USD)
Zambia & Eswatini: Private tourLuxuryTented Camp & Bush Camp
You Visit: Lusaka (Start), South Luangwa NP, Kafue NP, Lusaka (End)
Wayfairer Travel
4.8/5 – 174 Reviews
-
![6-Day Zambia Water and Land Safari]()
6-Day Zambia Water and Land Safari
$3,041 to $4,340 pp (USD)
Zambia: Private tourLuxuryLodge & Tented Camp
You Visit: Livingstone (Start), Zambezi River, Kafue NP, Livingstone Airport (End)
Safari365
4.7/5 – 23 Reviews
-
4-Day Kafue on a Budget
$1,056 to $1,111 pp (USD)
Zambia: Private tour
Mid-range LodgeYou Visit: Lusaka (Start), Kafue NP, Lusaka (End)
Ntanda Ventures
5.0/5 – 34 Reviews
