Ila Safari Lodge

After a one hour flight or a three hour drive from Lusaka’s hustle and bustle, you'll be welcomed by the Ila Safari Lodge team and basking in tranquility and luxury surrounded by the great wilderness of Kafue National Park. It's the largest and oldest park in Zambia, and one of the last great expanses of remote and unspoiled wilderness in Africa. The park was established in the 1950's by the legendary Norman Carr but despite its size, the diversity and wealth of game remains largely unexplored.

Ila Safari Lodge has 10 state of the art luxury safari tents, including two larger family suites, each perched on their own decks reaching out over the banks of the Kafue River. Each tent has been individually designed to blend with the surrounding environment, providing shade, privacy and your very own piece of Kafue wilderness. The family tents can accommodate four people, or in case of families with three children, they can have an extra bed added. The spacious tents offer two separated sleeping departments, ideal for families or for couples sharing. Both family tents offer a luxurious bath and shower, overlooking the Kafue River.

Explore in open 4x4 game viewers or by Zambia's very first eLandy (electric Landrover), by boat on the mighty Kafue River or using your own two feet in the form of walking safaris. 40% of all of Africa's water flows through Zambia and the Kafue River –the major lifeline of this park – is one of the largest rivers in the country. Take a smooth and serene boat cruise either at dawn or for sunset on one of the boats. Like the eLandy, one of their boats is solar powered too. As of mid-April 2018, the lodge also offers an outing and lunch with the Ladies Club at the nearby Chunga Community. A delicious traditional meal will be prepared, and guests will be able to learn about the local community, culture and traditions.

This unexplored gem of a park is enticing for its incredible diversity of wildlife and sheer quantity of big game. From the remote northern seasonal Busanga floodplain formed of open grassland dotted with wild date palm, sausage and fig tree 'islands', through central miombo woodland and along the banks of the mighty Kafue river to the more sandy southern plains, Kafue represents an incredible collection of diverse habitats.