Zambia: reviews from our travellers

"Everything went wonderfully well as we returned to our 4 favorite camps in Luangwa. Plenty of new things to see and do, and we met up with all our good friends in the camps there. What a bit of paradise it is.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No. Just keep it up! We value the service EA has given to us on 5 trips to Africa, and have recommended it to others at the camps.

The advice before the trip is especially helpful as it avoids the wrong expectations/clothing/cameras/binoculars etc that other operators seem to ignore." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 14 on a Zambia safari

"Outstanding trip. We thought our last visit to Zambia couldn't be bettered, but it has been. All the camps were excellent - no negative comments or suggestions for improvement. The African bush remains as alluring as ever.

Unfortunately for our bank balance we'll be back - please wait for the call!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We really can't think of any. This is our fourth trip organised through Expert Africa, and every one has exceeded expectations. We've also recommended you to others, and they've also experienced outstanding service.

Keep it up!" Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 16 on a Zambia safari

"We had a wonderful time! The lodges and camps were very much as we expected - or even better. It is true that one can 'travel light' because washing really does come back on the same day. Our sightings of wildlife were beyond our expectations and have left us with some marvellous memories - and hundreds of photos. We saw leopards on no fewer that seven occasions, and lions that were within touching diistance, not to mention all the antelopes, birds and other animals.

Unfortunately there was one event that could have spoilt our holiday had we not been fairly seasoned travellers who do not easliy panic. On arrival at Lusaka we discovered that our names were not on the Proflight list for the flight to Mfuwe, and it was full. The existence of our Expert Africa voucher for the flight proved totally worthless. Fortunatey we were assisted by staff from Tours Africa, who tried to contact Expert Africa for us but it was before office hours in the UK, and Chris McIntyre's phone was on voicemail.

They then contacted Heather at Tafika, and she sorted out an eTicket for the midday flight. All this meant we lost a morning hanging around at Lusaka airport, when we were expecting to be travelling out to the Luangwa valley. When we did arrive at Mfuwe we were met by a driver who had had to make an extra round trip to pick us up when he should have been on his way to one of the Tafika bushcamps. So our arrival at Tafika was all very rushed in the end, and not at all the relaxing start to a holiday that had been planned.

We would point out that Heather also checked our return Proflight flight, and passed on an eTicket (booked by Claire Scott), as there was no booking for that either. She also checked with Shentons that they were expecting us. Considering that this holiday was booked in early February this experience was very disappointing." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 11 on a Zambia safari

"My husband and I had been to Zambia 3 years ago and were travelling with my brother-in- law and his wife (from Canada) who had not been to Africa before. I think we were all very pleased with the holiday in terms of the huge variety of places we saw and things we did. It was a lot to pack in with 2 countries and 7 different camps/hotels in 3 weeks (so unavoidably a lot of travelling) but it gave us a great flavour of the countries and places we might want to revisit for longer.

We were pleased with the suggestions of places to stay especially the camps in Zambia and in S Africa Bishops Court and Ocean Eleven were really good. In retrospect the only changes I would make would be a day longer at Kaingo with possibly one less at Hog Hollow, and I would prefer to stay at one of the wineries rather than Rusthof.

The trip organisation was again excellent with all the connections, transfers etc working as expected and I would certainly use Expert Africa again for future holidays.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Perhaps worth considering suggesting people take evaluation forms with them as they are quite detailed and filling them in at the time might be easier and allow a more independent review (rather than comparing the different camps on your return." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zambia safari

"Another wonderful holiday arranged by Expert Africa.

We stayed in some amazing places and had great wildlife sightings.

A real adventure." Read full review: 28 nights in Africa; 17 on a Namibia trip

"Very disappointed about the walking safari experience and because there was so little interaction with animals the walking safari part was repetitive and after a few days boring. As the camps were relatively close to each other the terrains were very similar and therefore again led to repetition about the trees, grasses and poo.

The pictures in the Norman Carr brochures have obviously been manipulated (we heard that one of the hosts had admitted this to fellow travellers), very misleading. Had we known that the animals ran away we would not have taken this holiday. A very expensive mistake.

Because of the repetition we also thought that the trip was too long. 5 nights would have been more than enough before moving to a new location altogether.

A herd of buffalo bolted when we were 200 metres away. Hippos and crocodiles ran into the water when we were walking on the river banks on the opposite side to the sand spits they were on 40-50 metres away. A lion even moved into the grass when we were over 250 metres away. Lions, Hippos and crocodiles do not move away from vehicles even when they are relatively close.

We saw lots of game on the drives and were lucky to see 5 leopard and a significant number of lions including a mating pair during the trip.

There were some issues of cleanliness at the camps with broken or chipped toilet seats and general dirtiness of room floors and at Kakuli the bar area. We do not mean daily dust. Mrs Lloyd has lived in Zambia and understands the local situation regarding cleaning. The expat staff should be more on top of general cleaning.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We have no issue with Expert Africa's service.

For walking safaris I would suggest that you ask people what they think they will experience. The novelty of the walking safari experience is short lived and therefore we recommend that 4-5 days on the Norman Carr safari is more than enough. Our 9 night holiday was far too long." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zambia safari

"An excellent trip - we enjoyed all the places we stayed & everything went smoothly.

We were really helped by the advice we had from Gwynneth - she was knowledgeable and pragmatic about what we could do and what would be most fun." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 5 on a Namibia trip

"It was a fantastic trip, we enjoyed every moment (apart from me feeling ill on the little planes!). Tracy suggested Susuwe Island Lodge, Tubu Tree and Baines Camp and they could not have been better suggestions, we were delighted with them. They were all a bit different to each other in style and in slightly different habitats so we saw different things, which is what we wanted.

We had a rather lengthy journey from the Royal Livingstone Hotel to Susuwe. We noticed from the map that there is what appears to be a direct road north of the Zambezi and then over a bridge but we were not taken that way, we assumed that it can't be a very good road. However, we learned when we reached Susuwe that it is a good road, a modern bridge and the journey takes 3 hours door to door. It took us 6 hours.

First, 1 hour drive to the Zambezi, checked out of Zambia, speedboat across the river, checked into Botswana, were driven 10 minutes by a woman who was on her mobile the entiire time then transferred to another vehicle and driver - why? He then drove us all the way to meet the vehicle from Susuwe, but we had to check out of Botswana and into Namibia. The journey took twice as long and presumably because of this cost us twice as much, we had to wait at the various immigration and emmigration posts and got another Botswana stamp in the passport to no useful purpose. We would still have been coming back this way of course to Kasane to fly to Tubu Tree, so going there a different way would have made a round trip which would have been more interesting as well as far more convenient. We would like your comments on this please.

When we were offered to change from San Camp to Jacks Camp because of a photo shoot at San we were told there were "a couple" of other guests at Jacks. There were in fact about 12 other guests which is considerably more than "a couple". We immediately thought we shouldn't have changed as if we had been the only proper guests at San we would have had a guide to ourselves, whereas with so many other guests that was not likely. We thought this was very misleading wording by Uncharted Africa.

However, by accident rather than design we did in fact have a - very good - guide to ourselves so were mollified! We were pleased overall that we changed to Jacks, it was quite an experience. Thank you to Megan who pointed out that I was particularly interested in the meerkats and they arranged 2 visits to them into our schedule so that was lovely, and I adored having them crawling over me!

I was amused to read in the Bradt travel guide that there are no meerkats in the Makgadikgadi park. This is plainly not the case!" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Botswana safari

"Absolutely fantastic trip!

From start to finish everything went smooth and was great. Our best trip so far (out of seven trips to Africa).

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No idea. It's already so close to perfection." Read full review: 28 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"We all had the most woderful holiday imaginable, and all want to go back.

There were only 2 places that we would not want to revisit, Palmwag and Camp Kwando, our comments have already been recorded.
We had some trouble in Rundu, when a rucksac was stolen from the car, despite 1 of our men sitting in the car! We feel it would be helpful, if in future people going near Rundu, are warned to take extra care, not to leave cars unattended, and even if stationary in the car, lock all doors and windows.

At Ndhovu, we were told Rundu is a bad place, with handbags stolen from cars with people sitting in them, being distracted. There was a lot of noise and activity there making the opening of a car door, silently, relatively simple. (The people at Ndhovu put a lot of blame on people coming from Angola)

200 Rand notes do now seem to be accepted.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Tracy has been superb to deal with, very helpful at all times, guiding me in directions that were needed, and meeting all the needs of the 6 of us who travelled together. Sabrina took over very efficiently when Tracy went on maternity leave.

I would not hesitate to recommend Expert Africa." Read full review: 24 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip