Bushcamp Company Driving Safaris

Two lagoons frame Mfuwe Lodge, the gateway property of a circuit that runs deep into South Luangwa National Park. Ebony and mahogany trees shade its 18 thatched chalets, each with a private deck facing water where hippo and buffalo pass daily. Beyond Mfuwe, the company runs five other bushcamps and a private villa set, The Villas at KuKaya, across an exclusive 140,000-acre concession inside the park. It is a working circuit, not a single address. Guests move progressively from camp to camp, each in its own habitat, guided on foot by trackers trained in a lineage that runs back to Norman Carr, who pioneered the walking safari here in the 1950s. Founded in 1999, The Bushcamp Company has grown from four original bushcamps to eight properties, adding Kapamba in 2005, Zungulila in 2008, and KuKaya in 2023. Night drives are permitted here, a rarity inside African national parks. Between late October and mid-December, wild elephants walk directly through Mfuwe Lodge's reception to reach a mango tree in the courtyard, a sighting guests describe without exaggeration. Leopard densities run among the highest recorded in Africa, and lion prides hunt the open floodplains in daylight. You can hear hippos grazing below the lodge decks after dark. Camps stay open all year, including the green season from December to April, when the valley turns lush and quiet.