Flights and roads
How to get to South Luangwa National Park
An hour and ten minutes by air from Lusaka, or a nine-hour drive on tar the whole way. The old warning about a punishing dirt road to Mfuwe is out of date: it was surfaced years ago.
By air, the usual way
Proflight Zambia flies Lusaka to Mfuwe year-round, taking one hour and ten minutes. Frequency swings with the season: around five flights a week each way in the March low, rising to about seventeen a week in July and August, with up to three departures a day at the peak. Fares run around $307 one way.
That year-round service is worth stressing, because a surprising number of websites claim flights stop during the green season. They do not; they simply thin out.
Mfuwe airport sits about half an hour from the gate and the main camp cluster, and every camp will meet you. Proflight also connects Mfuwe with Livingstone (for Victoria Falls), Ndola, Windhoek and Maun via Lusaka, and there is a light-aircraft link to the Lower Zambezi that runs until 15 November each year. From Malawi, Nyasa Express flies Lilongwe to Mfuwe in about 35 minutes.
Baggage, the detail that catches people out
- Proflight domestic: 23 kg checked in total plus 5 kg hand luggage.
- Any light-aircraft leg: 20 kg in total, in a soft duffel, including your hand luggage and camera gear. No wheeled suitcases.
- Excess is about K100 per kilo at the airport, or cheaper if you buy it online in advance.
- Items longer than 1.5 metres need clearing with the airline 48 hours ahead.
By road
This is the correction that matters most. For years every guidebook warned about the brutal dirt road from Chipata to Mfuwe. It has been surfaced, and the drive from Lusaka is now tar from end to end in nine or ten hours.
From Chipata, turn towards Lundazi and Mfuwe just after the Protea Hotel, follow the tar about 112 km to a T-junction, turn right at the Zesco sub-station and continue 25 km past the Oasis fuel station. The camp entrances start soon after.
Coming from Malawi, allow an hour from Lilongwe to the Mwami border. You will need police clearance for the vehicle, obtained in Lilongwe, plus Zambian third-party insurance and carbon tax bought at the border.
| Leg | Distance | Time | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lusaka to Chipata (Great East Road) | ±570 km | ±7 h | Tar; fuel at Petauke and Chipata |
| Chipata to Mfuwe | ±120 km | ±2 h | Tar the whole way |
| Lusaka to Mfuwe total | ±700 km | 9–10 h | Tar |
| Lilongwe (Malawi) to Mfuwe | – | 5–6 h | Tar, via the Mwami border |
The Kafunta Crossing, and why you probably cannot use it
- It is seasonal and depends on the river level, so there are no fixed dates. In practice it runs from around the end of May until the rains arrive in November or December.
- If you are booked with an operator whose camp sits in the south of the park, ask whether they use it. It saves a long drive round by the bridge.
- Confirmed to us by Kafunta Safaris in August 2026.
Self-driving here
- Self-driving is allowed and there is a dedicated fee tier for it: $30 per person per day.
- You do not need a guide to drive, but you do need a 4x4 inside the park, and absolutely so in the rains.
- Open safari vehicles are for licensed operators only. Self-drivers must be in a closed vehicle.
- Your permit expires at 18:00, so no night drives. Operator vehicles run until 20:00, which is the whole reason night drives exist here.
- Walking anywhere on your own is prohibited. Off-road driving is prohibited too, and that policy is a big part of why this valley still looks the way it does.
- Last fuel is Petauke, Chipata and the Oasis station on the Mfuwe road. Carry a reserve.
- Between January and March the park loop roads become impassable and some camps are cut off entirely.