Gwabi River Lodge
Chalets, stone tents and a large campsite · Kafue River at the Chiawa bridge, 6 km from the Zambezi near Chirundu · Family run, Tony Weber
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Budget
Outside the gate
Owner/family-run
Not a safari lodge so much as the gateway everyone passes through. Tony Weber told us the old Kafue pontoon is long gone, replaced by the Chiawa bridge in 2015, and that the opening of that bridge changed what they do here considerably. What they run now is the water: transfers to the camps downstream, fishing, game viewing and birding trips, and a boat run into the park where their own game viewer vehicles are waiting, so you get the river and the land in one day. They also do canoe safaris sleeping on the river for up to three nights, and keep a bus for airport collections and cross-border runs.
Why you'd pick it
- The staging point at the Kafue crossing, by road and by water
- Boat down to the park with their own game viewers waiting at the other end
- Canoe safaris sleeping on the river, up to three nights
What's here
- Swimming pool
Arranged from the lodge:
- Boat trips
- Birding
- Fishing
Read from Gwabi River Lodge's own website in July 2026. Anything not listed we could not confirm, which is not the same as it being absent.
What the park charges on top
The rate above buys you a bed. Lower Zambezi National Park charges its own entry fee for every day you are inside. Here is what that adds up to.
- Park entry$25 if you are with a licensed operator instead of self-driving.
- $30per person, per day
- VehicleUnder 3 tonnes, foreign registered.
- $15per vehicle, per day
Three nights means three days inside, so two adults sharing one vehicle pay $225 in park fees before anyone pays for a bed.
Camps inside the park bundle a bed-night levy and community fee on top, which together run $85 to $120 per person per night. That is the number that lands on your invoice, not the gate fee.
The full fee schedule for Lower Zambezi National ParkRates
Rates on request, budget to mid. No published rate card. Camping, chalets and tented units are all available; contact the lodge.
What the rate covers is not confirmed. We do not know yet whether meals, drinks and activities are included, so read this as the bed only.
Every figure on this page is in US dollars.
Indicative 2026 rates from operators' own rate cards, gathered July 2026. Always confirm with the lodge. Two things shift the real comparison here. First, camps inside the park add $85 to $120 per person per night in bundled park and conservation fees, and most quote that separately. Second, camps in the Chiawa game management area carry no national park entry fee at all unless you cross into the park, which is why a GMA bed can work out far cheaper than the headline rate suggests.