Day 1: Arrival in Lusaka
Arrive in Lusaka and connect onto a light aircraft flight to Mfuwe
By joining this safari, you will help support & grow several Zambian community projects, including anti-poaching units, K9 detection dog units, conservation education in local schools, life skills for womens’ groups, human-wildlife conflict mitigation projects, a community tourism accommodation project and Zambia’s Carnivore conservation project. This package includes a direct contribution to all of the above, so greatly helps in an ethical, environmental and local community-focused way. We can assure you that not one cent will be lost to administration costs.

Day 1 Arrive Mfuwe either by road from Lusaka (9 hours) or by air (1hr 10min)
On arrival a driver will meet you and drive you through the small town of Mfuwe to reach your lodge, on the banks of the Luangwa River

Day 1-5: 5 Nights South Luangwa National Park Staying at Flatdogs Camp – AI
Your accommodation will be in a luxury ensuite safari tent which offers you a back to nature taste of the wild, with large gauzed windows on each side to enable you to see and hear the animals feeding in camp as well as the hippopotamus honking to each other in the river in front of you! The tents are spacious with a king bed or two single beds, large mosquito net, electric lights and plug sockets for re-charging batteries (UK style plug sockets). There is also a room safe and tea and coffee-making facilities. The luxury tents have semi-open air en-suite bathrooms with solar heated hot shower, WC and basin.

Day 1 South Luangwa National Park
Arrive in camp and relax that evening before dinner and a well-deserved rest after the journey

Day 2 South Luangwa National Park
It’s an early start in the morning before your first exciting safari – so you can see why the South Luangwa National Park is able to support the local community and why people like yourself travel so far to see the natural habitat and wildlife found here. We offer an early breakfast of toast and cereals and yoghurt from 5.30am before you head out at 6.00am on your morning game drive, ready to explore the Park with your guide, taking the sightings as they come, with your guide detailing all you are seeing and adding interesting observations drawn from his years of experience in the Park. You will return to camp at around 10.00am, in time for a late breakfast or a brunch/lunch type meal – whichever you would prefer is possible in our a la carte restaurant. Then there is time to relax during the heat of the day, enjoying a dip in the pool perhaps or a siesta after your early start?
In the afternoon, we meet in the courtyard for tea before you head off again at around 4.00pm, ready to further explore this magnificent wilderness. Our guides take huge pride in their work, being able to identify numerous alarm calls and to track animals, trying to anticipate their next move so as to position you perfectly for the best sightings.

As the sun starts to dip towards the horizon, your guide will find a good spot to stop so you can stretch your legs and watch the sun set with a cold drink in hand… Then, once it’s nearly dark, you will carry on game-viewing with a spotlight, searching for some of our interesting nocturnal residents, like the leopard, lion, porcupine, civet, genet, owls and hyaena.

You will return to camp at around 20:00hrs in time for dinner and to relive your sightings with us!

Day 3 South Luangwa National Park
Today you will head off to spend some time with the fascinating Zambian Carnivore Programme team to learn more about their Incredibly important research, conservation programmes and other work they do in the field both with communities and the carnivores themselves. This is the country’s longest- running carnivore conservation project here in the Luangwa, and together with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks the programme has supported Zambian researchers and students to produce strong science based conservation and policy recommendations and an array of collaborative conservation actions. If any of the ZCP researchers are heading into the field, either into the Park or the Game Management Area bordering the Park, then you can accompany them, hopefully to find and track one of their collared carnivores and learn more about their vital research into populations of large carnivores all over Zambia. We can either provide a packed lunch in case they are planning to head further afield, or one of the ZCP team might be able to join you at camp so you can talk more about their aims and results so far. www.zambiacarnivores.org 

Day 4 South Luangwa National Park
This morning you will head off to the Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre (around 45 minutes Drive away) for a visit to the project and its founders, Steve and Anna Tolan. Located approximately 17kms from Flatdogs, Chipembele Runs extensive, inspirational, community- appropriate programmes, teaching children and adults to protect and conserve the local wildlife and environment that is their natural heritage. These programmes focus on the rapidly developing rural communities adjacent to the main entrance to South Luangwa National Park. A team of Educators encourages young people to be Conservation leaders and for all generations to engage in sustainable livelihoods and protect the natural environment. There is a small campus
based in the grounds of the local secondary school, putting the programme right at the heart of the local community and extending the geographic outreach to a total of 19 schools. Their 4 Community Conservation Educators lead conservation education sessions in 16 community groups and 16 schools each week. A bespoke mobile
education unit visits even remoter communities with the same mission. There is an emphasis on addressing environmental and wildlife issues that directly affect the
students and their families in the area through activities such as tree planting schemes, environmental campaigns and human-wildlife conflict solutions. You will visit their internationally acclaimed Conservation Education Centre with an interactive Discovery Room on the banks of the Luangwa River which children from 7 local schools attend for a full day’s lessons and activities. This expansive conservation education outreach programme has been the recipient of 5 international
awards. www.chipembele.org 

You will return to camp for lunch and enjoy your second afternoon/night drive that afternoon, returning to camp for dinner in the evening.

Day 5 South Luangwa National Park
Time for another morning game drive or perhaps a walking safari if you prefer this morning, before returning to camp for brunch/lunch and then heading into Mfuwe village to visit the Conservation South Luangwa base. Here you will learn more about the K9 detection dog unit, their veterinary work and anti-poaching teams. Conservation South Luangwa is a registered charity since 2007 which supports and trains local village scouts so that they are able to conduct snare patrols, anti-poaching patrols and respond to reports of illegal activity both inside and outside the National Park. Since they first started their conservation work in the Luangwa valley, the CSL team has grown to 66 trained scouts, 5 detection dogs, a pilot, a full time vet and 11 support staff. They work in conjunction with DNPW (the Department of National Parks & Wildlife) to reduce wildlife poaching and poisoning in the South Luangwa, the trafficking of animals and also in wildlife rescue. In addition, CSL works closely with the Zambian Carnivore Programme (ZCP) to conduct research on carnivores in the park. They share data obtained from ZCP, ie GPS locations of wild dogs and signals from lion collars to assist with finding and treating snared animals. CSL also has a Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) Mitigation team who work with the communities living around the park to help reduce conflict with wildlife using innovative non-violent methods. Their work focuses on 4 types of conflict; property damage, crop damage, livestock predation and preventing human injury/death. The community-based team maintain a HWC database by assessing all conflicts. They implement solutions such as chilli bombers, elephant proof grain stores and predator-proof livestock enclosures. Their alternative crop scheme, provides a source of income for farmers where elephants would destroy staple food crops, like maize and rice. Farmers can safely grow and harvest chillies, lemongrass and turmeric which are sold to the Zambian marketplace for use in chutneys, jams and teas. www.cslzambia.org

Day 6 South Luangwa National Park
You will be transferred by road to your next stop, our local Village community project where you will overnight in order to enjoy the full authentic experience and allow yourselves to immerse fully into the local rural village culture

Day 6-7 South Luangwa National Park
1 night COMMUNITY CAMP OVERNIGHT IN A TRADITIONAL VILLAGE

Unlike many "Traditional Village" experiences, this community village project is found in a real living, working African village where the local residents have agreed amongst themselves to invite visitors into their lives with no fake tourism hype at all. They plan together how best to use any money raised by visitors & donations, whether it is to help with school fees for disadvantaged children, or to dig a well for use by the farmers, or to buy tree seedlings to replace those used for cooking fires by each family. During the visit, for example, guests can help villagers in the preparation of maize or cassava for their meals, drying sorghum, making traditional “hooch”, hoeing the fields, building & repairing houses and also visit their local herbalist/medicine lady to learn more about traditional healers and local medicines. You will spend the night in a traditional local hut with shared facilities including traditional bucket washing and “long drop” toilet facilities. This aims to be an authentic Zambia rural village experience so you can really experience how people here in Mfuwe live. If animals enter the fields near the village, you might be awoken by the banging of pots as everyone tries to scare them away. All meals in the village are included and these will be entirely authentic local dishes – you eat what the villagers eat.

Day 7 South Luangwa National Park
You will be transferred back to Flatdogs Camp at around lunch time, in time to relax before a further afternoon game drive into the National Park.

Day 8 South Luangwa National Park
Day 7-9 South Luangwa National Park
Flatdogs Camp – 2 nights

Return to Flatdogs Camp for two more nights in a luxury safari tent
Today you will visit Project Luangwa, set up by a group of the valley's safari camps including Flatdogs Camp in 2010. These safari camps understood the growing need to empower communities and show them the benefits that wildlife and an unspoiled habitat brings to the region. By using a portion of the proceeds from each visitor to the Luangwa, Project Luangwa seeks to reaffirm the importance of tourism in action. At the cornerstone of our belief is improving standards of health and education, providing a platform to help raise rural areas out of poverty. As part of this program, Project Luangwa supports school construction and Development, student sponsorship, gender support, female empowerment and Conservation in particular with numerous other community activities falling under their umbrella too. Our most recent activity is concentrating on trying to reduce de-forestation in the area, which is threatened by commercial wood collection for sale in nearby towns as well as use in brick making, charcoal making and to brew alcohol for sale. Project Luangwa is now talking to local wood collectors to try to provide sensible alternative sources of income for them which will not involve wood collection which is dangerous for people as well as unsustainable. www.projectluangwa.org 
After lunch we will take you to the Mulberry Mongoose workshop where they create interesting pieces of jewellery from snares found by anti-poaching patrols, raising funds for further anti-poaching work in the region.

Day 9 South Luangwa National Park
Your fascinating sustainable safari ends today, either for you to transfer back to Lusaka or Malawi by road, or to be ropped back at Mfuwe airport if you are travelling by air. We very much hope that the week will have been educational, inspiring and motivating to you to continue supporting the great projects helping local people in the Mfuwe area.

Remarks:

This package includes:
All accommodation on a full board basis, all safari and other activities as described, National Park Entry fees & Tourist Levies as required**, Luangwa Community & Conservation Fund contributions, internal flights (LUN/MFU/LUN)airport and all other necessary transfers in the South Luangwa, and daily laundry (except at the community Village).

This itinerary also includes separate contributions to Conservation South Luangwa, Project Luangwa, Chipembele wildlife education and the Zambia Carnivore programme

Price Excludes: All drinks at Flatdogs apart from sundowner drinks on afternoon game drives, drinks other than water while in the village or items of a personal nature. Internal/Domestic flights

**Please note that Park Entry fees and Tourist Levies for 2021 have not yet been officially confirmed by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and these may increase without notice. Any increases will have to be passed onto the guests.
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