Travel Tuesday: South Luangwa National Park, Zambia | Africa Travel Photographer

Travel Tuesday for 3.10.15: South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Traveled: January 2015 with Alex

I have been a lot of places in my 33 years, gone on loads of adventures. I take great pride in actually doing the things on my life list, rather then just putting them off for a vague notion of someday. However, going on safari is something that I had always want to do, but had always evaded me. It was something that kept getting put into the “I would love to do that someday” column.

I knew it was going to be likely part of a longer trip and while I could go by myself, I figured this was a trip I’d like to have a buddy for. When Alex let me know that his new job would provide him with basically the entire month of January off, he said, “Ok, pick your destination.” For anyone who knows me in real life, this was a combination of me winning the lottery and my decision nightmare. Having quite literally the entire world to chose from was no easy task.

I had about 5 different places on my shortlist, but eventually safari won out. I looked into Tanzania, which was our original choice, but the options there were just far too expensive. Then while looking through a Lonely Planet I stumbled upon the idea of off the beaten path South Luangwa in Zambia. At less then half the price of anything I had found in Tanzania, staying in one place the whole time, at a nice lodge, with almost all the same wildlife, but without all the tourists? Sold. Adventures await.

We had no idea what to expect. We knew we were going during rainy off season when a lot of other things are closed. Who knows if we would even see anything? It turned out to be well worth the gamble. While it rained off and on during our time in the park, it never really impeded our sight seeing with the exception of one brief stint on the very last evening. We saw animals galore! More elephants, giraffes, antelope, warthogs, monkeys, hippos and zebra then we could count. Eight leopards and a pride of nine lions. There are also over 400 species of birds in the park, and while I’ve never been a birder, it was amazing to see them. We saw several leopard hunts at night, and we witnessed a young leopard go after a pack of wild dogs, which our guide who’d worked in the park for 20 years say he’s never seen happen! It was nothing short of incredible. One of the best parts of the experience was that for the majority of the time, we were the solitary jeep around. Occasionally we would run into another party, but for the most part it was just us, two other American guys who joined our safari and our guides. If you’re considering a safari in east Africa, give South Luangwa a chance, it won’t disappoint.

Enough talk, onto the photos! Below are some of my favorite highlights from our 5 days in the park. The full gallery can be found here, where you can also order prints as well. I am working to get all my travel collections online, hopefully soon! (All fine art travel galleries are watermarked online, however prints are NEVER watermarked.)

 

South Luangwa National Park Elephant Photos Safari Photos Zambia African Safari Birds Hippo Jaws African Safari 005-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Zebra Photos African Safari Giraffe Photos African Safari African Destination Wedding Photographer African Destination Elopement Safari in Zambia South Luangwa Safari Bird in Flight Africa African Safari Photos Zambia Safari South Luangwa National Park 016-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer 017-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Baobob Tree Leopards Hunting at Night 020-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer 021-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer001-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Giraffes South Luangwa National Park 023-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographerWild Dogs on Safari 024-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Leopards in South Luangwa Leopards in Africa 028-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Lions on Night Safari Lions in South Luangwa 031-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographerParade of Elephants 032-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer 034-AfricanDestinationWeddingPhotographer Zambia Travel Photographer Lions on Safari Photos Leopard Siblings on Safari

Travel Details: Currently, South Luangwa is still pretty far off the regular travelers map. While it is accessible by bus, it’s a multi day journey from Lusaka or at least 8-10 hours from neighboring Malawi. Thus, we opted to fly via Proflight Zambia. It’s a teeny tiny prop plane, but we had no issues. Our guide picked us up the airport and drove us to camp.

We stayed at Wild Life Camp, which I can’t recommend highly enough. We had our own private cabin with a nice hot water shower, a private veranda facing the river, and everything was very comfortable. The camp provided 3 multi course meals a day plus tea time and the food was excellent. Our guides were amazing. Our primary guide, Ryver, was a virtual walking encyclopedia of knowledge who answered each and every question we had and spotted animals that we never could have seen otherwise. I learned a huge amount about the animals of the park as well as life in Zambia in general. Our night spotter was the best in town, and left us repeatedly awestruck, spotting leopards in the dark every night, finding animals other spotters missed, and even spotting in the most crazy of conditions, things like a green snake, on a green leaf tree in the dark in the rain. Amazing.

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De Nueva Photography specializes in NYC elopements and weddings. I'm also available for engagements, proposals, and family portraits.

 

Not having a local wedding or elopement? No worries. Travel is literally my favorite thing and my passport is always ready. I’m available for travel worldwide.

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