Highlights of Zambia

Zambia is perhaps southern Africa’s best-kept secret, although, in recent years, it’s a secret that’s increasingly being told. For a long time, Botswana and South Africa have been the region’s most popular wildlife and safari destinations. Still, Zambia is fast emerging as an excellent alternative, and indeed, for some experiences, there’s no better place to travel.

Zambia has 20 national parks of various sizes, with roughly a third of the country protected within wildlife management areas. A few of these parks, South Luangwa and Kafue in particular are considered to be some of the best places in Africa to do a walking safari, not only for their fantastic wildlife and pristine, unfenced wilderness but especially for the quality of their guides.

Zambian field guides are recognized as some of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable in the world, winning guiding awards and accolades year after year. And they have plenty to be enthusiastic about as Zambia isn’t just somewhere to tick off the Big Five. For one thing, rhinos are almost non-existent in Zambia’s major parks, but more than that, it’s the rare species and remarkable migrations that make a safari holiday tour to Zambia so unique.

As the first summer rains fall in early November, thousands of Bue wildebeest congregate in Liuwa Plain National Park for Africa’s second-largest wildebeest migration (after the Serengeti). At the same time, some 850km (528mi) to the northeast, up to 10 million fruit bats can be seen swarming across the skies of Kasanka National Park, and the very rare Black lechwe antelope can be spotted in the water courses nearby.