How to get to Lower Zambezi National Park

The Kafue pontoon is gone, and most pages still tell you to use it

For years every route description for this park sent you to a pontoon across the Kafue River just past Gwabi River Lodge, with advice about crossing times and getting there before midday. There is no pontoon. The Chiawa bridge was commissioned in 2015 and you drive straight over.

Tony Weber at Gwabi River Lodge, which sits at the crossing, told us this directly in August 2026. He also said the opening of the bridge changed their business considerably, which is a fair measure of how much the old crossing shaped a trip here.

What has not changed is the part after it. The track through the Chiawa game management area to Chongwe Gate is still rough dirt and still the part that eats the clock.

By air: the normal way in

Proflight Zambia runs the scheduled service from Lusaka into the valley, and it operates as a shuttle: times flex with demand and weather, and routings often hop via the other airstrip. Lusaka to Jeki, the strip inside the park, takes about 35 minutes. Lusaka to Royal, the strip in the Chiawa game management area, takes about 60 to 65 minutes because of those hops.

The aircraft are Cessna Grand Caravans and Beechcraft 1900s, and the limit is 20 kilograms per person in soft bags including hand luggage. Camera gear counts. Proflight offers free storage for excess bags at Lusaka airport, which is the standard solution if you are continuing elsewhere afterwards.

On fares, sources disagree. Proflight's own site has shown a sample Lusaka to Jeki return from around $483 including taxes, while a valley portal quotes $389 per person return all inclusive and $824 per person return for the Lower Zambezi to Mfuwe hop. Treat all of those as indicative and get a quote through your camp.

The flight schedule, and why 15 November matters

The season runs 1 May to 15 November, confirmed on Proflight's own schedule. That cut-off is not an airline quirk, it tracks the camps: the network stops precisely when the lodges close and the valley roads fail. Outside those dates there is no scheduled air access to this park at all, and you are on a private charter or a boat.

You will see the flights marketed under other names on some agent sites. We could not verify any current Royal Air Charters or Procharter branding; the scheduled service is Proflight Zambia.

The airstrips

Jeki and Royal are the two strips Proflight serves. There is no Chongwe airstrip, whatever you may read: Chongwe is a gate, a river and a lodge name.

By road from Lusaka

The park lies south-east of Lusaka, and the distance is short by African standards while the time is not. The tar runs out well before you get there, and the track through the game management area is the part that eats the clock.

There is no crossing fee to budget for on this route any more; the Chiawa bridge replaced the pontoon in 2015. Gwabi River Lodge still sits at the crossing and is where most self-drivers stage a night, and where the boat transfers downstream leave from.

What vehicle you need, and what to know before you set off

• A 4x4 is strongly recommended for the whole route and is required inside the park. In the dry season a high-clearance 2WD with a driver comfortable in sand can reach Chongwe Gate, but that is the limit.
• There is no mobile coverage between Chirundu and the park outside the villages. Download offline maps before you leave.
• Google Maps does not know the track. Maps.me does, and the offline mapping apps generally do better here than the mainstream one.
• There is no fuel in the park. Every trip report puts the last fuel at Chirundu, though we could not confirm that from an official source. Carry jerrycans.
• There are no paved roads inside the park. Fallen trees on the Chongwe road are common enough that locals carry an axe and a shovel as standard.
• In the rains the internal roads become impassable and access is by boat only. The park does not close; the roads do.

By boat, and from Zimbabwe

Chirundu is the established embarkation point for boat transfers and for canoe safaris heading downstream. The motorboat run from Gwabi to Royal Zambezi takes about an hour and three quarters and is a genuinely pleasant alternative to the last stretch of track.

Coming from Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, the usual approach is a boat up to Chirundu, roughly an hour and a half to two hours, then clearing immigration at the Chirundu one-stop border post and transferring on. That routing comes from a forum source rather than an operator timetable, so confirm it with whoever is meeting you.

We found no scheduled commercial transfer between Kariba and the Lower Zambezi. If someone offers you one, it is a private arrangement rather than a published service.

Gates and self-drive access

Self-driving is permitted, and the clearest proof is that DNPW publishes a distinct self-drive tariff of $30 per person per day. Day permits are bought at the gate.

Chongwe Gate on the western boundary is the main self-drive entrance, reached through the Chiawa game management area. Mukamba Gate in the north comes off the Great East Road, with camping reported about 20 kilometres from the highway; details there are thinner. A third gate, Chavululu, was built on the eastern boundary in 2022 by Conservation Lower Zambezi.

Note the permit window before you plan a late arrival: the self-drive permit runs 06:00 to 18:00, so you cannot be on the road after dark, and you cannot do a night drive on it.

Sources

• Proflight Zambia: flights to Lower Zambezi
• Expert Africa: Lower Zambezi National Park
• Gwabi River Lodge, at the Kafue crossing