Park fees compared: where South Luangwa sits among 17 African parks

What a standard day is

One comparable 'standard day' = the park fees one international (non-resident, non-regional) adult pays for 24 hours: (1) the person's daily entry/conservation fee at the sleeping-inside rate where a park distinguishes it, (2) half of the daily fee for one standard private vehicle (the two-person party splits it; ranges taken at midpoint), and (3) one night at the cheapest bookable public campsite inside or at the park (per-person rates as published; per-site/per-pitch rates divided by the same two-person party), with VAT included where the park adds it (Tanzania adds 18%; Zimbabwe's gazetted rates already include VAT). All figures come solely from each park's fees.json; non-USD amounts converted at verified mid-September 2026 rates; every component rounded to whole US dollars and total_day is the sum of the rounded components.

Fees only: no beds beyond the campsite, no food, no fuel, no activities. Our costs page for this park adds all of that back in.

The index, cheapest first

A * marks a park where one component has no published rate, so the total is a floor. Non-USD fees were converted at mid-September 2026 rates.

Every figure comes from the park authority tariff documents behind our seventeen fees pages, most recently checked between July and September 2026. Where this park's own figure surprises you, its fees page carries the source document.

How to read the gaps

The spread is nearly six to one, and it does not track quality. The cheapest complete day on the index, Hwange, carries some of the best wildlife viewing in southern Africa; the most expensive, Nyerere, charges a premium-tier conservation fee plus 18% VAT on everything.

Two patterns explain most of it. Tanzania adds 18% VAT to every component and prices its premium parks aggressively, which is why four of the five most expensive days are Tanzanian. And camping arrangements decide the rest: parks that sell a cheap public pitch (Hwange at $23, split between a car) undercut parks where the only legal camping is a private operator's site (Gonarezhou's $100-plus tiers, Moremi's privatised sites).

The audit trail

Every judgement call in this index is written down: which fee row we used per park, which campsite, which exchange rates, and where we refused to guess. The full notes live in the research file behind this page; the per-park caveats that matter most:

• gonarezhou: vehicle fee has no official published figure — the file gives '±$5–10/day' from secondary sources; midpoint $7.50 used and flagged. Camping uses the Transit campsites at $100 (limited to 2 nights; the cheapest unrestricted tier is Developed communal at $104). The file also warns it is unstated whether the Trust's camping minimum charges already include the daily conservation fee, so the $115 person+camping combination may double-count up to $15. Person fee is the $15 sleeping-in-a-park-camp rate, not the $25 self-drive/day rate, because the standard day includes a campsite inside the park.
• hwange: person fee is the $12 staying-inside rate (day visit is $24) and vehicle the $3 staying-inside rate (day visit $10), per the sleeping-inside rule. Prices already include VAT per the file. The camping row reads '$23 up to 3 people, per extra person $23'; I treated $23 as the pitch price for our two-person party and halved it.
• kafue: camping combines the official DNPW camping fee ($5/person/night) with the cheapest operator campsite named in the file's footnote, Musungwa at 'about $25' — an approximate, footnote-level figure (Kasabushi and Mapunga are $45; Mayukuyuku, historically the cheap option, closed December 2025). Fee schedule is headed 2025 and marked verify-at-gate.
• katavi / ruaha / mahale / nyerere / udzungwa (Tanzania): 18% VAT added to every component per each file's vat_note; vat_added shows the VAT dollars inside the total. All rest on the TANAPA 2023/24 tariff, still the current published schedule; each file documents a conflict with tanzaniaparks.go.tz park pages (which show $70/$50 template figures) and I followed the files' choice of the gazetted tariff sheet.
• kidepo: vehicle uses the Ugandan-registered 4WD at UGX 30,000 (≈$7.80), which the file calls 'the usual hire car'; a foreign-registered 4WD is $150/day (share $75, total $125). Camping uses the Category C public campsite at UGX 40,000 (≈$10.41), which the file says is quoted only in shillings so the foreigner rate is 'genuinely ambiguous'. UWA tariff nominally expired June 2026 but still the live rate card. Vehicle entry is charged per 24h except for lodge (concessionaire) guests, who pay once per trip.
• liwonde: the official sheet prices the $30 park fee per person per NIGHT, not per day — the file flags this as the park's biggest fee trap; treated as one 24h unit here. Vehicle $5/day split to $2.50, rounded to $3.
• lower-zambezi: camping is null — the file states no bookable DNPW or public campsite inside the boundary could be verified; the $5 'Camping, non-resident' row is a DNPW park charge, not a campsite price, and self-drivers in practice camp in the Chiawa GMA (where no park entry fee applies at all). Person fee is the $30 self-drive tier (operator-vehicle rate is $25) since the standard day includes a private vehicle. Total $38 is therefore incomplete.
• mahale: vehicle_share is a true $0, not missing — the park has no roads and the file states there is no vehicle fee; access is by boat (small private boat TSh 10,000/day, not counted as it is not a standard private vehicle). The park is realistically not self-drivable, so its 'standard day' is the least like the others.

Plus four global rules: per-site campsites are split by the two-person party; components are rounded to whole dollars; incomplete totals rank low but are not comparable; and Zambian parks charge per calendar day, not per 24 hours.

Sources

• The seventeen fees pages of this guide network, each carrying its authority's tariff document (checked Jul-Sep 2026)
• FX: BWP/USD at 13.42 (2026-09-12)
• FX: UGX/USD at 3844 (2026-09-12)
• FX: KES/USD at 129.45 (2026-09-12)