Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs TM from Utah, USA

"Our group of three couples had the camp and guiding area to ourselves. An excellent experience - more variety than we anticipated seeing.

Helga was a first-class, bright, accommodating host and Joe was an excellent guide! Joe worked very hard to get us some excellent sightings. He was easy for our old (ages 70 to 81) ears to understand.

At some other camps we visited, the guides also had excellent skills but their accents were harder, even much harder, for us to understand, especially those in the middle and back rows of the vehicle."

"Little Tubu was a very enjoyable camp. Our guide, KB, was very skilled and able to get us some memorable sightings.

One highlight was a two hour nature walk with KB and Lesh, a tracker. Lesh is an older, kindly, salt of the earth, wise man who had our immediate respect. Another highlight was a three hour boat trip with KB.

The guiding area had an excellent variety of birds.

Having internet access at the camp was helpful but not intrusive. It was only available in our tents, not in the dining and lounge areas."

"We had some wonderful sightings and memorable experiences at Lagoon Camp.

Guide (Ike) and tracker (James) were both very good - even amazing.

The "tents" are huge! The camp is in an excellent setting."

"Some wonderful sightings with an able guide (Tuelo) and tracker (Dimbo) - a pack of wild dogs with 11 pups, a lioness with three suckling cubs, a cheetah on its kill of a baby zebra with vultures waiting for their "turn", a pair of honey badgers in daytime, secretary birds, a tower of giraffes on full alert with a pride of lions nearby looking for a giraffe to be just a bit slow in moving away, a short mokoro ride in a beautiful, riverine setting, an eventful river trip with a hippo lurching to get out of our way and several elephants in nor hurry to give way, and a bull elephant that wouldn't give way causing us to re-route on our trip to the airstrip.

One drawback is the condition of the two track roads. Large portions of the roads are on deep sand, causing the vehicles to "wallow" and lurch rather severely and frequent instructions from our guide to "Hang on!". Because our visit was in July (the dry season), there is nothing the camp can do improve the condition of the roads. Apparently that is not an issue in the rainy season when the sand compacts and makes those portions of the road system quite tolerable.

Lagoon Camp and Kwara Camp share the guiding concession, hence there are sometimes three vehicles at a game site, even four vehicles on one occasion. Having many vehicles in a concession increases the chances of finding wildlife but it also makes the game drives less "intimate".

Splash Camp is a relatively large camp which made it so that dinner was at a very long table. The noise level at dinner was quite high, making it difficult, even sometimes impossible, for our group of three couples to hear each other talk. I developed a preference for smaller camps."

"Saw large groups of elephants, hippos, and zebras. One cantakerous elephant blocked our return to our tent one afternoon for about five minutes until a very tall staff member "explained" to him that he needed to go back into the bush.

Saw a leopard mother and daughter working on a "stashed" impala for two days. Saw a lone sable whilst having lunch in the camp and a sable family of three arrived concurrent with us at the airstrip as we were leaving Sable Alley."

"Part of the camp's consignment is beautiful open grassland with large groups of various antelope species and zebras. Late one afternoon, we tracked a rhino for several miles but couldn't find him/her.

The camp put on an enjoyable outdoor music and dance program, and a wonderful dinner one evening about 3 km from the camp."

"An excellent location with a wide variety of sightings.

It felt that the furnishing of the tents was a bit "overboard" attempting to recreate the setting of a camp in Africa many years ago.

Wonderful staff and guide (Matt).

Able to get good photos of malachite kingfishers near camp via mokoro.

Encountered the tail of a leopard, a sleeping cheetah at 40 meters, and large groups of impala and zebra on a walking safari.

Absolutely classic sighting of a leopard on a dead tree branch en route to depart at the air strip."

"Excellent location to access the falls.

Late arrival and early morning departure so we weren't able to do some of the available activities at the hotel."

"A very "real" and remote bush camp with an excellent guide (Alex).

We were a group of six. We didn't learn until we arrived at the Mfuwe Airport that we would need to split up into groups of three to fly to the camp in the camp's one airplane. We arrived at Mfuwe just before noon and the second group of three didn't get to the camp until about 4:30 p.m. To access the camp, we waded across the shallow Mwaleshi River which was not difficult.

Saw huge groups of hippos at the confluence of the Mwaleshi and Luangwa Rivers. On a driving safari, we found a pride of lions on the edge of the Mwaleshi River. Most were on the far bank but two females were on our side of the river, and they casually rejoined the rest of the pride by walking across the fairly shallow river. A memorable sighting.

Tafika was very helpful in facilitating our transfer from Mwaleshi to Mwamba via Tafika."

"Abundant wildlife. Excellent location. Excellent guides.

A stunning sighting of herds of eland, wildebeest, and zebra together and a large breeding herd of roan antelope.

A bush camp that is taken down at the beginning of the rainy season and rebuilt in May of the following year!"

"Our guides were Isaac and Steve. Both were very good. The night before we arrived, the Tafika staff looked at our ages (provided to them by Expert Africa) and, because most of us are in our 70's, we were dubbed the "Madala Group" with "Madala" meaning elderly. That was fine with us.

Highlights of game viewing include a female leopard with a cub and a dead impala in a tree, a rookery of about five large trees filled with yellow-billed storks and their chicks with hungry marabou storks at the base of the tree waiting for scraps dropped by the chicks and a martial eagle attempting to have a chick for lunch, and a huge herd of cape buffalo. We biked with John Coppinger to the nearby Mkasanga School which is partially supported by the Tafika Fund. The children danced and sang for us and a youth choir from the Covenant Church sang and danced for us. Saw many puku antelope.

Seldom encountered vehicles from other camps on game drives.

There were often small frogs, some spiders, a small lizard or two, and some armored crickets (all harmless) in the guest units. They were not a problem for us but some might flinch a bit at such creatures.

We liked the fact that Tafika is a relatively small camp and we very much enjoyed going to Tafika's bush camps across the river - a short boat ride and a walk of about five hours but that could have been shortened if necessary."

"Crocodile Bush Camp.

We had two wonderful nights at CCB. We walked about five hours to get to the camp with an armed and congenial Zambian park ranger in the lead. En route, we walked thru a huge herd of cape buffalo, some zebras, elephants, wart hogs, hippos, birds, giraffes, etc. Many of the rainy season lagoons were dry and absolutely covered with dried mud footprints of elephants and hippos. That made walking a bit challenging but survivable. A pair of walking poles (or two suitable tree branches) would have helped.

The food and accommodations were excellent. Pukus, wart hogs, and elephants right in front of the camp. On one afternoon game walk, we encountered at very close range a pack of wild dogs in hot pursuit of an impala. That was a memorable experience as was the bark of the two of the dogs whose chase we had ruined. On a morning game walk, we saw one eland and a kudu family. That was the only eland of our trip."

"The guest units are huge and beautifully furnished - the nicest units of the five camps at which we stayed. The camp overlooks a channel of the Zambezi River populated with more than a few hippos and crocodiles, and often crossed by a parade of elephants.

On game drives (eight guests per vehicle) we saw many kudu and water bucks, and a sleeping male lion. Two afternoon/evening game "drives" were by boat. We saw goliath herons and the beautiful, diminutive, hard-to-photograph malachite kingfisher. Game sightings were not as frequent as at the other camps we visited.

Food was excellent."

"Our guides were Piet and Victor. Both were superb! Game drives were in vehicles with four guests per vehicle.

Highlights were: (1) a pack of wild dogs playing together, hunting (without success), and then laying down to rest, (2) a herd of roan antelope, (3) ostriches, (4) a gigantic pride (200+) elephants moving north at sunset, (5) two lion prides, (6) red lechwe, (7) wildebeests, and (8) a "charge" by four elephants led by a notorious, cantankerous elephant with an injured ear. The charge was avoided by Piet's adept driving skills.

The staff was happy, hard working and professional.

The food and guest units were excellent (except the inside of the guest units are not well lit at night as was surely the case in true explorer camps)."

"Access to this camp is by vehicle and a five minute boat ride. Game drives are four guests per vehicle and four guests per boat. Our guides were Nas and Sam. They were both very good and worked hard to create great sightings and experiences.

The most memorable sighting was of a herd of large, beautiful sable antelope.

We had two exciting and informative trips by boat going at fairly high speed through narrow channels between reeds and papyrus along the banks.

The staff was excellent, happy and professional. The food was excellent."