South Luangwa National Park — Attraction in Muchinga Province

This park is beautiful — amazing wildlife, stunning nature. But beneath the surface seems to lie a serious problem: a corrupt system seemingly designed to intimidate and extort self-drivers.

We witnessed a leopardess with her cub and fresh kill. For 30 peaceful minutes, we watched the cub feed. Then a game drive vehicle arrived. The cub hid. The guide asked what we had seen, and we answered. Moments later, he drove off-road, deep into the bush, chasing the cub. The distressed mother followed, and both fled. A hyena later took the abandoned kill. We confronted the guide — he showed no remorse.

Two days later, we wanted to re-enter the park and met the same guide at the gate. Offended by our earlier criticism, he told the guard we had been speeding the day before — although we weren’t even in the park that day. The guard ignored this fact, repeated the false accusation, became hostile, and blocked our entry without explanation.

Eventually we gave up, not willing to pay any penalty fees for doing something we didn't do. Later we heard from another couple who were also falsely accused and asked to pay 500 Kwacha. This is clearly systematic: self-drivers are harassed with made-up violations to extort money or push them out.

We are experienced safari travelers. What we saw wasn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern — and a disgrace to conservation. We do also have pics as proof of the game-drive deep in the bush, but...

Here they force you to pay in cash (USD), and then they choose which notes they choose to accept eventough they are all valid and in good state. Then, its a question of cost: we've paid 75 USD to get in the park. They dont let you out of the vehicle, but there is no toilets or pick-nic areas to...

A very beautiful national park was a good experience and the guides and rangers were very helpful, all roads were very good , park had plentiful of animals , u can see 4 of the big five , and it is famous for the big five A very good experience and a beautiful...