Luxury South Luangwa National Park Tours made for you

Choose from five spacious safari villas or a two-bedroom family villa, all shaded by ancient trees

Set around two lagoons and shaded by a canopy of ebony and mahogany trees is where you’ll find South Luangwa National Park‘s award-winning Mfuwe Lodge.The open plan reception, lounge, dining, and bar areas of the lodge overlook the two lagoons, with the wallowing hippo and thirsty wildlife sure to keep you entertained. There are 18 accommodations available, including two suites and three family rooms, styled as thatched air-conditioned chalets. Inside, each chalet has a comfortable sitting room, with the suites featuring an additional seating area upstairs, and the family rooms supplying ample space for two children. This region of the park is renowned for its prolific game, and giraffe, buffalo, antelope, and crocodile also being regular visitors to Mfuwe Lodge’s lagoon. Walking safaris can be arranged on request, but the majority of outings are game drives. Each year at Mfuwe Lodge, whole families of elephants visit between late October and mid-December to indulge on the fallen fruits from the large mango tree in the lodge grounds, a sight that is wonderful to behold. Activities also include spending some time with the local Mfuwe community and discovering the true meaning of relaxation at Mfuwe Lodge’s Bush Spa. As the sun sinks below the horizon, there is nothing better than finding a spectacular spot in the heart of the bush for a refreshing drink.

A quietly luxurious bush camp, Mchenja sits in under the shade of a grove of ebony trees on the banks a great sweeping bend in the Luangwa River. Five stylish octagonal tents have their own private en-suite open air bathroom plus Victorian style baths with river view. The central lounge is built around one of the old fallen Mchenja (ebony) trees and guests can cool off there in the camp’s plunge pool. Brunch is taken in the shady lounge but dinner is more often served on the river bank under the stars. Guests staying at Mchenja can choose whether they want to view their wildlife on foot or an open vehicle. The camp is the perfect destination to complete a walking or driving safari that has combined stays at Mchenja’s sister bush camps, with a little more comfort and pampering after time in the bush.

For incredible vistas and prime game viewing, Puku Ridge Camp is a superior choice for a stay in the South Luangwa National Park. Its allure comes from its outstanding location: perched on a hilltop in an exclusively remote area of the park, it offers guests panoramic views over the floodplains below. The opportunity for exceptional insights into animal behaviour is enhanced by the design of the camp which is camouflaged to blend in with its surroundings while leaving a minimal carbon footprint. Composed of a large living and central dining area and seven generous safari tents each with their own viewing deck, the feel of the camp is spacious and comfortable. Tents benefit not only from their own indoor showers and baths, but from outdoor facilities that are carefully shaded by forest for unique viewing experiences. Every area of the camp has been designed to take advantage of the incredible viewing opportunities offered by its surroundings, giving you the chance to spot more than 60 mammals and over 400 bird species while unwinding in communal areas, resting in your tent or even when in the bathtub. When you do venture out from the comfort of this luxury camp, you’ll be brought on game drives in especially designed 4×4 vehicles or on exciting and informative bush walks accompanied by expert guides. Lying nestled in a remote game-rich area of the park, lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe and zebra can frequently be seen alongside antelope, buffalo, bush babies, and impala.

Four spacious chalets sit on raised wooden decks with grass and reed walls and large, open air en-suite bathrooms. Each chalet runs on solar power and is set under the shade of evergreen trees with private verandahs overlooking the surrounding bush and waterholes in the Luwi River. The open sided lounge is on the banks of the Luwi River with a bush bar and dining area offering a peaceful refuge where guests can study the camps collection of books or watch a variety of game visiting the permanent pools of water on the riverbed. This is one of the South Luangwa’s more remote, luxury safari camps with many wonderful walking areas in the vicinity. There is also the opportunity to participate in game drives for those wishing to combine walking and driving. Various lion pride territories overlap in this area and the cats use the dry river bed as a thoroughfare and a means not only of locating their prey, which come to drink, but also of locating their rivals who must be warned to stay away.

This stunning hilltop lodge was built in the 1970s for Kenneth Kaunda, the former president of Zambia. It has thankfully retained its original colonial style, and outside the grand dining room a long veranda stretches with views down the valley to the Luangwa River itself. On warm evenings, dinner is served outside near roaring fires that all adds to the atmosphere. Dinner is often accompanied by the grunt of lions or the saw of leopards in the wooded valleys that surround the lodge. Each of the ten suites at Chichele comes complete with a four-poster bed, air conditioning, luxurious bathroom and every amenity guests could wish for – all in the middle of the African bush. As with the rest of the lodge, the suites are decorated in an understated and elegant Victorian style. Watching the sun rise over the Luangwa Valley from a private suite is a rare privilege and well worth getting up early for. From Chichele Presidential Lodge, you also have the particular privilege of being able to go on night game drives, when it is possible to see all sorts of animals that are seldom seen by day – such as leopard, hyena and bush baby.