Best Day Trips from Zambia 2026

Lusaka National Park

This is a fenced wildlife park roughly 20 km south of central Lusaka near Chilanga, created to give the capital a stocked game area without a multi-day safari. It holds white rhino, giraffe, zebra, eland and other plains game reintroduced onto former farmland, and because the park is small you can realistically cover it in a half-day. The appeal is proximity rather than scale: a real chance of seeing rhino on foot without leaving the city's edge.

Highlights: See rhinos, lions, zebras, and giraffes without a multi-day safari commitment · Compact park ideal for a half-day outing · Night drives available for an additional fee

Chisamba Hot Springs

Highlights: Natural thermal pools at 40 degrees Celsius · Picnic grounds in a quiet rural setting · Local village market nearby

Kasisi Mission and Orphanage Gardens

Kasisi is a long-established Catholic mission east of Lusaka, run by the Daughters of Charity, best known for its orphanage and its organic farm, which supplies vegetables, dairy and preserved goods sold under the Kasisi Organics brand in Lusaka supermarkets. A visit here is low-key and grounded rather than spectacular: walking the mission grounds and gardens, and understanding how the farm supports the orphanage, is the point rather than any single landmark.

Highlights: Historic 1905 Jesuit mission with colonial architecture · Tranquil gardens and chapel open to visitors · Opportunity to support local craft cooperative

Kabwe Heritage Sites and Broken Hill Man Cave

Highlights: Site where the 300,000-year-old Broken Hill Man skull was discovered · Mulungushi Dam walk and birdwatching · Old colonial copper-belt era architecture

Siavonga and Lake Kariba Dam

Siavonga is Zambia's main lakeside resort town on Lake Kariba, built on the hills above the water once the dam flooded the Zambezi valley in the late 1950s. The draw is the lake itself - houseboat trips, fishing for tigerfish and bream, and views over one of the world's largest reservoirs - plus a look at the Kariba Dam wall further along the shore. It's a day of water and scenery rather than sightseeing stops, and most of it is spent on or looking at the lake.

Highlights: Walk across the top of Kariba Dam — one of Africa's largest man-made structures · Views of the vast lake with the Matusadona Mountains on the far shore · Fresh kapenta (small sardines) lunch at the lakeshore restaurants

Chongwe River and Wildlife Corridor

Highlights: Canoe day trip on the Chongwe River where it meets the Zambezi · Hippo and crocodile sightings from a traditional canoe · Excellent birdwatching including fish eagles and kingfishers