Zambia

When to Go

May to June — the country reopens, and it is still green. The rains end in April and camps come back through May and June with the bush tall and water high. Game viewing is not yet at its best, since animals are dispersed and the grass hides them, but the light is clean, the Lower Zambezi canoeing is at its most pleasant and rates sit below peak. June mornings in the Luangwa Valley drop into single figures Celsius and clients are always surprised by that — a fleece for the dawn drive belongs in the packing list.

July to August — the dry season proper, and the walking. Surface water dries back to the rivers and the permanent lagoons and the game follows it. The bush camps are all open, walking conditions are at their best, and Busanga on the Kafue finally emerges from flood, its camps running roughly July to October and no longer. Days are warm and dry, nights cool, and mosquito numbers hit their annual low.

September to October — peak game viewing, and serious heat. The best wildlife of the year and the hardest weather of it. The Luangwa lagoons shrink to mud and the river becomes the only water for miles, so elephant, buffalo, hippo and the predators working them concentrate onto a narrow strip, and leopard sightings are at their most reliable. Zambia's legal spotlit night drives pay off here as nowhere else. The price is temperature: October in the Luangwa and Zambezi valleys regularly passes 40 degrees by mid-afternoon, which rules the month out for some older clients. September is the better half of the pair.

November to April — the emerald season, and the closures. The rains arrive from late November and run to March or early April, and most camps in South Luangwa, the Lower Zambezi and Kafue shut from November until April or May, with the bush camps going first. What continues is a small group of all-weather lodges around Mfuwe, where flooded plains are worked by boat rather than by vehicle, plus Kasanka for the bats from late October into December and Liuwa, whose wildebeest gather with the rains and which therefore runs against the national grain. Rates fall by a third or more, migrant birds lift the count past 400 species, and impala and puku drop their young with the predators in attendance. Against that: impassable roads, walking largely off the table, high grass and genuinely difficult game viewing.