Family Safari to Zambia and Lake Malawi

Joanna and her family had a wonderful trip to visit Victoria Falls and South Luangwa National Park in Zambia and then Lake Malawi in Malawi.

Joanna and her family enjoying an exhilarating swim at Devils Pools in Victoria Falls!

Starting in Victoria Falls, the family stayed in a great lodge on the banks of the Zambezi, on the Zambia side of the falls. The time of year they visited ( August ) and the low water levels meant that they got to enjoy exhilarating activities like swimming at the Devil’s Pool, right at the end of the falls!

From Victoria Falls they flew via Lusaka to Mfuwe and six unbelievable nights at Flatdogs Camp, splitting their visit to the Treehouse family unit and the Crocs Nest unit. Game viewing is always excellent and the family was not disappointed, seeing everything!

From Mfuwe they flew on a small charter flight to Lilongwe in Malawi and were driven to Cape Maclear before boarding a boat to Mumbo Island, a lovely lodge in the middle of Lake Malawi. This was an idyllic way to end their family safari!

Here is Joanna’s feedback:

Hi Michelle,

Thank you for your message, we did have a really amazing trip!!

The Bushbuck Lodge in Livingstone was great, owned and run by really friendly and helpful people who organised all our activities that ran like clockwork.

The accommodation there was very clean and comfortable, the food was great too. We felt very at home there and it was great value for money and in a really quiet location which was perfect for us.

Amongst other things we swam in the “Devils Pool” at Victoria Falls, which was an amazing if slightly terrifying experience!

Flatdogs Camp was I think our favourite and we really loved both accommodations there, the Treehouse was really special with so much wildlife passing by all day and night. The Crocs Nest was very luxurious and we made full use of the private pool.

Both the owners and managers as well as all the staff were fantastic and the whole place is extremely well run. The food was fantastic and we liked having the option to eat at our accommodations. The free laundry service taken care of by our butter was perfect, in fact we could not fault the service at Flatdogs at all.

Our private safari guide (their head guide) was amazing and so amazingly knowledgable, we so enjoyed the game drives and saw so much! We saw basically everything including 9 leopards and many prides of lions, including some wandering through the camp one morning! The only thing we did not mange to see were the wild dogs, maybe next time!

The night game drives and the walking safaris were also amazing. South Luangwa, certainly has a huge amount to offer 🙂

We flew to Malawi in a tiny cessna plane, just us 4, which was a really fun experience and the drive to Cape Maclear was very interesting and the drivers, both ways were very knowledgeable about the area.

Mumbo island is very beautiful and the accommodation there was simple but lovely, we really enjoyed the beautiful views of the lake from our reed tents and sleeping almost in the open. The food there was also very good and we really enjoyed the morning tea / coffee & biscuits tray that was delivered to our reed tents. We got quite used to the lack of electricity and very soon, they are well organised with solar lanterns and also solar charging systems for electronic devices.

We also did 8 dives whist we were there which were really very interesting and well organised.

Overall we had an amazing time there.

we would like to thank you once again for all your help and advise in organising our trip.

I have attached some photos of our trip 🙂

Kind Regards

Joanna & family