[TRAVEL]: Lower Zambezi, Zambia November 2024

It’s been years since I last wrote a blog post about my travels to Zambia, but this trip was different and I wanted to share more about it. We had the privilege of celebrating my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, so it called for an extra indulgence at our favourite place, the Lower Zambezi River. I looked in my archives and the last time I posted about Zambia was in 2020! Can you believe it? I apologize for the lack of Zambia posts especially as I so enjoy writing about my travels.

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3 Nights at Royal Zambezi Lodge

One thing I’ve had on my bucket list for years, is to stay at Royal Zambezi Lodge down on the Lower Zambezi River (just outside the National Park). Often when I travel to Zambia, my mom and I will spend a day at the lodge and enjoy a divine lunch and pool time but I’ve never actually stayed there. So imagine my excitement when we stayed there for three nights! According to my parents, I was as giddy as a schoolgirl when we were being shown our rooms! You can watch my Instagram Reel on it over here.

Some of my highlights of our stay were the following:

Luxurious rooms with a private pool – you all know how much I love being in the water, and it’s very much appreciated when temperatures are over 40 degrees Celsius. I would even take a dip after dinner at night before heading to bed.

A game drive that can only be described as “incredible”. We were all so looking forward to it. Honestly, I could drive around in a game viewer vehicle all day, there is just something about it that I love so much. We went into the Lower Zambezi National Park and were treated to some sensational sightings such as a Lion eating his kill, then going to join his friends for a nap and even a Cheetah with 2 kills. I have a Instagram Reel up on that over here.

The food was delectable. Drool-worthy. You are served 3 courses a day with tea times in between. We were in a food coma every day basically. Luckily I have a brother who could hoover down all the leftovers haha. In between our activities, we obviously fished as well.

The Rest Of Our Stunning Holiday

After our fantastic 3 nights, we headed back to our usual spot, Gwabi River Lodge. It’s always a feeling of coming home when we are there. You can read more from my previous stays at Gwabi here and here. We spent the rest of our time on the boats fishing or at the lodge’s swimming pool as the heat was intense! The river’s water levels were so low, in fact, it’s the lowest I’ve ever seen the river in all my years of visiting so I’m really hoping they receive more rain soon to help the water levels.

On one of our fishing days, we had a sandbank braai in the middle of the river (one of the perks of low water levels), it’s always such a cool experience!

Treasured Time In Zambia

While I am incredibly blessed to have traveled to the Lower Zambezi quite a few times already, I always appreciate my time there. It’s something I will never take for granted. The beauty of the wildlife will leave you in awe. The flora as well as the fauna is so diverse and constantly changes the further down the river you go. I could spend hours on the boat just drifting down and admiring it all.

Let me know if you have any questions about visiting the Lower Zambezi in Zambia? If you are interested in a fishing tour, I can highly recommend Taylor’s Tiger Fishing Tours (I might be a bit biased).

Thanks for reading!