Are you searching for the ‘best Zambian budget safari’ on offer? Find it right here in this blog!
I started my search with ‘budget safari zambia’. Lots of options came up, many of which were not what I would call ‘budget’. To save you the hunt, read on. I think you may well agree that our experience through Cedarberg Travel/Africa, https://www.cedarberg-travel.com/ is the ‘best Zambian budget Safari’ you could ever wish for!: A 5 night Safari at Flatdogs Camp https://www.flatdogscamp.com/ near South Luangwa Park https://www.southluangwa.com/.
Although Cedarberg Travel is a South African company, they operate in the UK as well. Our travel agent was Ginny Russell who is based in the UK. This suited us as we live in England. We were able to communicate very easily with her, even telephonically – which is such a rarity these days. She couldn’t have done more for us, or had more patience in dealing with us. She guided us every step of the way. We can’t praise her highly enough. Even though it was a personalized tour, it was still less expensive than other deals I’d found- amazing!
Note:
There are no costs given in this blog, for the simple reason that there are just so many variables ; length of stay, time of year, fluctuating airfares, type of accommodation, number of people in your group etc. But rest assured, you will get excellent value for money by going through Cedarberg Travel and choosing Flatdogs as your preferred camp.
Here’s how our Safari was planned.
Our ‘must-haves’
- End of the rainy season i.e. end of May onwards into early June. Also, not yet peak season, so a bit less expensive.
- South Luangwa Park: we’d heard from friends that this park was exceptional and it was the park most easy to travel to.
- 5 nights Safari: to maximize our viewing experience – we knew this was a ‘one off’ for us,
- Glamping:i.e. ‘glamorous camping’ – you’re in a tent, but it’s big with comfortable beds, as well as a ‘kind-of outdoor‘ en-suite bathroom. It is much cheaper than staying in a chalet or lodge.
- Inclusive package: meals and game drives included in the safari.
- Zambian Flights: Booked for us through the company.
Note:
- Book as early as you can as to avoid disappointment – not getting the dates you want etc. Some people book up to a year in advance!
- Check out the Zambian weather patterns before deciding which time of year you would like to go. For us, in early June, the weather was perfect; about mid 20’s with cloudless blue skies every day and clear, starry nights.
- Some people prefer to go later when it gets much drier. The days are much hotter, but the nights are colder – and, surprisingly, they can get very cold indeed.
- There are some months in the rainy season when a lot of tour operators don’t do Safaris.
- Be aware too, that especially for birds, there are only certainly times of year when you will see some behaviors e.g. I would love to see the spectacle of Carmine Bee-eaters nesting in river banks, but I knew I wouldn’t on this trip because that only happens in spring – September.
The initial search
I did find a good package deal through https://www.africanbudgetsafaris.com/ : 5 day South Luangwa Tented Camping Safari with flights from Livingston included in the package deal. It mentioned that you would stay in a camp just outside South Luangwa Park. This sounded good as the lodges in the Park itself are of course much more expensive. The name of the camp isn’t mentioned though.
However, it wasn’t quite what we wanted: a) only 4 nights b) we wanted direct flights from Lusaka to Mfuwe (the nearest airport to the Park).
Flatdogs Camp
It’s a bit hazy now – but somehow I found Flatdogs Camp, https://www.flatdogscamp.com/ which is the camp closest to the entrance of South Luangwa Park. I am pretty sure that this is the one that African Budget Safari uses.
You can do no better than staying at Flatdogs. Everything was exceptional: location, accommodation, meals, game drives, and staff, ensuring the ‘best Zambian budget safari’ you could possibly dream up. Guests can go on two game drives every day; one in the morning: it leaves at 6 (coffee and a snack before you leave) and returns to camp at about 10; and one in the afternoon/evening; 3.30 pm to about 7. – 7.30pm. This park is one of only a few that do night drives. So, we were entitled to 5 night and 4 morning game drives during our stay – exceptional value in our deal. We did skip one morning one to go into Mfuwe village. It was very worthwhile.
Here are some photos to whet your appetite. There are other options apart from glamping that are a bit more exotic and pricey. The camp is relatively small and this makes for a very personalised experience for every guest. Do visit Mfuwe village while you’re there, to see what Flatdogs have done/are doing for the local community. It is very impressive and you’ll find lovely gifts to take home with you – or keep for yourselves. Go to their website to see more.
The Courtyard – the main eating area
Our glamping tent – basic but perfect.
This was the view from our tent. We could see hippos and crocodiles on the river banks while sitting in our deck chairs and hippo grunts serenaded us at night! The river looks quite low here but looked fuller in other parts of the park.
The fabulous swimming pool. It is lovely and warm in early June and I enjoyed my swims very much.
How amazing is this – elephants wandering through the camp in broad daylight. Read the full story about this in the Safari photos below.
Hitting the Jackpot
Then Cedarberg Travel came up somewhere in my searches, and in no time Ginny Russell had put together a link to a personalized tour for 4 of us (my twin sister and her husband were joining us): A 5 day Safari at Flatdogs Camp, and flights from Lusaka not Livingstone. There were tantalizing pictures throughout, which made it all ‘real’ and irresistible! Honestly, you can do no better than going through Cedarberg Travel/Cedarberg Africa https://www.cedarberg-travel.com/ for your ‘best Zambian budget safari’.
After our Safari, we flew down to Livingstone to ‘do’ Victoria Falls’ as well, before flying back to the UK via Lusaka. Cedarberg Travel also arranged this for us. (Watch this space for a separate blog on this.)
The planning – nearly everything done for us…
So….it turned out to be rather complicated:
- Cedarberg Travel booked flights that ensured that we made the absolute most of our Safari. We flew with Emirates; London Heathrow to Dubai and then on to Lusaka. These flights arrived at 14.35. If we had then flown straight to Mfuwe, we’d have missed out on lunch and the game drive on that first day. So we opted to spend one night in Lusaka. We stayed at Latitude 15, about 20 minutes from the airport and it was good, (except for the dodgy power!): https://15.thelatitudehotels.com/
- Ginny booked our flights to Mfuwe for the next morning, which got us there before lunch.
- We needed 2 tents for the 4 of us for 5 consecutive nights at Flat Dogs – this took some juggling as the camp was already fairly booked up.
- We’d first thought 2 nights in Livingstone, but with the days we were able to get at Flatdogs it would’ve meant that we would be flying back on a Sunday. But Emirates doesn’t fly that route on Sundays. So we opted to spend 3 nights in Livingstone and it turned out to be the right decision.
- Proflight do the internal flights in Zambia. Cedarberg Travel are so familiar with their flights schedule and so it was such a relief to just let them sort all that for us.
- Hotels were recommended for us and we chose from just a couple – so much easier than hunting through the many options online ourselves.
- Transfers from airports to hotels in Zambia were advised, rather than just getting random taxis. We wouldn’t have known this. These were booked for us too.
Really, the only thing we had to do was book our own International Flights. We chose Emirates. Our son-in-law kindly helped us with this – so much less stressful than doing it ourselves!
The date draws near and excitement mounts!
A week before we left, we received a package through the post from Cedarberg Travel with everything we could possibly have needed to know about our trip; tips on what clothes to take and even what colours to wear to minimize mosquito and tsetse fly bites; suggested medication; suggestions of amounts to tip various people etc. etc. And of course our itinerary and flight details for the ‘best Zambian budget safari’ we were about to embark on!
All aboard everyone
P.S. Dont think you can’t do this if you are bordering on ‘elderly’ (that horrible word!) and even if you’re not as well as you could be. We are well into our 70’s; the ‘boys’ both use walking sticks; and my husband isn’t well, but we not only managed, we had the most marvellous time.
Even if you really can’t see yourself getting there, you can still enjoy a fabulous armchair travel experience through this blog and these photos.
And here it is – the actual Safari experience!
Sit back and enjoy some of the photos I took on the ‘best Zambian budget safari’ we enjoyed. This is just to whet your appetite. You will have fun taking your own pics on your very own Safari.
We were fortunate to have head guide Malama for all our game drives. His knowledge on everything is exceptional. He has a wonderful sense of humour too. Here he is checking us in at the entrance to South Luangwa Park.
For the uninformed, these are flatdogs! They’re enormous and you will see very many of these both in the water and out.
One of the many variations of landscape in the park. I took this in the late afternoon.
Do you know that another name for elephants is pachyderms? We saw loads of them, but never tired of watching and admiring them.
Luangwa River in all its splendour at sunset.
I have a good camera with a telephoto lens – not a huge one but good enough to get some reasonable photos of birds. This is a WaterThick Knee. It used to be called a Dikkop (Afrikaans for Thick Head). Why? – who knows.
Malama knows the park like the back of his hand. We were amazed at the variety in the scenery.
No prizes for knowing what these are! We saw so many of them of course. On the night drives, we often came across them out of the water, as that is when they come out to feed.
Who doesn’t love giraffes? We used to often visit Addo Elephant Park in South Africa and we loved it, but there were no giraffes, so it was a thrill to see so many of them on this safari.
A young ‘Bambi-like’ bushbuck stepping daintily across the road.
The African Hoopoe – such striking plumage.
Buffalo – cute calf – many animals in the park had little ones. Always a delight to see.
Then we saw this huge herd of buffalo just before sunset.
A pride of lions had killed a buffalo the night before we came across this rather gory sight. The females were all lying about with very full bellies, having had their fill, while the males and cubs feasted on what remained. The males growled and snarled and chased off any females who tried to get close. Vultures hovered nearby waiting for the scraps. We had been fotunate enough to come across this pride on the hunt the night before (which was actually our first night drive). Malama heard agitated baboons chattering and knew that this meant lions were about. It was so exciting as the lions were all around us, although fairly spread out and in and out of our visibility . One lion even lay down for a little rest right next to the back wheel of our vehicle! Confidence (yes that really is his name!), the guide shining the light, had switched it to infra red so that the lions weren’t disturbed but we could still see them. We felt so privileged to have experineced this, even though we didn’t see the actual kill.
On every evening drive there were drinks and snacks down on the river banks as the sun was setting. South Luangwa Park is one of only a few game parks that do night drives. They actually start at 3.30pm (with a scrumptious tea before-hand!) and then you get back to camp at about 7 or 7.30pm, depending on sightings.
I took this photo with my mobile phone from the open air dining room at Flatdogs. I zoomed in a bit but not much! We were asked to move into the courtyard area while we were having lunch in the garden, because an elephant was coming – to eat his own lunch! We watched him pulling down branches and stripping off the leaves and feeding them into his mouth with his trunk. The camp is not fenced and so the wild animals quite often stroll through. We’d arrived on the Sunday and were told that on the Friday night, a pride of lions had walked through! I took a couple of videos, but unfortunately the files are too big for my blog to publish.
And then two more elephants came to join the first one – apparently they are siblings (or ‘friends’?) and it was only after the third one arrived that they finally wandered off into the bush. We were safely escorted back to our tents via a back route.
A magnificent Martial Eagle posed for us in this tree and our fantastic guide drove round to get us the best view and lighting.
There are a couple of baobab trees in the park but this is the best one. It was fascinating to see the Red-billed Weavers’ nests in its bare branches as well as the entrance to a beehive in the trunk. What intriguing trees they are.
Have you ever seen an albino yellow baboon baby? Well here is a photo of the one we saw – very endearing! Of course we all took loads of photos….
“What are you staring at?” he seems to be thinking?
A rather regal Black-headed Heron.
Yet another glorious sunset in Africa…..sigh….appreciated so much, now that we are living in England.
We hadn’t seen any hyenas in the first couple of days and had been hoping we would. Then we came across this one lying casually on the bridge over the Luangwa river, just before we exited the park.
Elephants are such magnificent and photogenic animals. Their family bonds are so incredibly strong – how special to see this big family – and even better, reflected in the river.
Hippos, and more hippos happily wallowing everywhere.
One of the most gloriously coloured birds you will ever see: a Lilac-breated Roller.
A proud Kudu bull.
More happy hippos wallowing. We chose to go to the park just at the end of the wet season and were so glad we’d done this. Although there had not been as much rain as usual, the river still had plenty of water in it.
A big fat mama with her curious baba.
This is just a small section of a huge flock of birds we saw feeding in this long muddy stream. The beaks of these Yellow-billed Storks were clacking loudly. Also amongst them were Maribou Storks and Pelicans. We love the birdlife as much as the animals (well almost).
We were so fortunate; 4 leopard sightings in the short time we were there. What magnificent animals they are.
The animals all seemed pretty unfazed by onlookers in game viewing vehicles – a testament to the way they are respected in South Luangwa Park?
We could hardly believe our good fortune – on our last game drive we watched a pack of wild dogs just prior to a hunt. They were a bit far away and the light was fading, so my photos are not great, but quite a rare sighting and we could get ‘close-ups’ with our binoculars. I did get a video of them as they set off on their hunt, but again, the file is too big to publish here unfortunately.
Zebras are so numerous that one tends to take them a bit for granted but I love this photo of them with the backdrop of trees and sunset.
Our last night: Dave and Anne surprised us with extra special drinks and snacks for our river-bank sundowners! Apparently the wild dogs that we had seen setting off on their hunt had just run right past them before we arrived. What an awesome last evening for our ‘best Zambian budget safari’!
Travelling there and back – not such fun!
3 things I would highly recommend:
Assisted travel – it can be ‘fun’ – shuttles and wheelchair races?!
If you are a ‘senior’ with mobility issues, alert the airlines your’e travelling with that you would like assisted travel. It is a free service. This was a huge help. We got queue priority and also saved on the walking. It won’t work well all of the time unfortunately.
Transfers – make sure you allow MORE than enough time.
Especially if you’re going via Dubai airport. It’s huge and terminals are miles apart. We’d thought 1 hour 40 minutes would be time enough to transfer from Dubai to Heathrow on our return journey. Wrong. We missed our flight. The staff tried their best but it wasn’t enough. We were ‘pushed’ (the two men in wheelchairs) from pillar to post (i.e. lift to bus to shuttle etc) and went through security 4 times! We caught the last few seats on the next flight – luckily not too long a wait. Missing the plane resulted in us missing our coach from Heathrow back to Bath as well and because we hadn’t paid extra for changes, we ended up paying peak hour fares to get back. We left our hotel in Livingstone at 11am and eventually only got home at 8pm the next evening!
Keep a sense of humour!
We did have a few laughs going through security. “I don’t remember buying a brown belt” my husband announced – the boys’ belts got muddled in the trays. The metal detector alarm went off every time we girls walked through because we have both had hip replacements. And we did have wheelchair races – airport staff were pushing the boys in their wheelchairs and we girls had to speed-walk/run to keep up….
But in the end it’s the positives that stick with you; the higlights of our wonderful experience – the Best Zambian Budget Safari ever!
Superb, Jane. Although we were with you on the same holiday, you’ve brought it all alive again for me! What a special time it was.
Thanks so much Sue! Luckily the fun bits definitely outweighed the ‘not such fun’ bits.
I absolutely love all your descriptions of your safari and how everything works, it’s so helpful to others who might not yet have taken the plunge! I am so happy that you had such a wonderful time and are happy to share it all with others! Thank you!
It’s a pleasure Jess – I hope my blog alerts a whole lot more people to the heaven that is Flatdogs! It would be so wonderful to do a return visit, but sadly it aint gonna happen!
I’ve been checking your blog to see this write-up! It was so much fun to re-live our safari’s with you through your blog and pictures. It was a fabulous time. We had so much fun with your whole group and wish you all the best!!
Hi Annie and Dean, It was so great to get your comment on my blog – thank you for that – and please feel free to share it with whoever – it may inspire some people to do a similar Safari! It was fun sharing some of our game drives with you guys – such a young, happy carefree and in love couple! Hope your walking Safari was all you’d hoped for? The woman who came back with us said it had been too hot for her to enjoy it – much hotter than the previous time she’d done that. All the best for your future. Maybe you will get back to Zambia one day??
We loved Victoria Falls and staying at the Avani Hotel meant that we could just walk from the hotel grounds to view them. My husband remembered the name of a pilot he knew who used to do flips over the Falls. I looked him up while we were waiting for connectiong flights in Lusaka and he is still there and has his own company. So we got in touch and he gave us a free flip! He even took us ‘white water rafting’ in the chopper!! I’m going to write a blog on this part of our trip, so keep checking for that as well. Unfortunately I will not be able to include the video though – too big a file.