Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs A from Malaysia

"The camp itself is beautiful and the mixed male/female local staff make it a home from home. The guides also work like slaves to make your stay enjoyable. However as our main aim of going to Botswana was to view and photograph a similar wealth of animals that we had seen in an earlier trip in Chobe, the game drives were disappointing.

We did see animals including the big cats but the terrain is very boring as it never seems to change very much with lots of stunted trees (thanks to the elephants) and underfrowth. We were hoping for more scenery and greater numbers of animals.

Full marks to Ace our guide who lived up to his name."

"Chiawa is one of the prime camps in Zambia and it was a very comfortable and pleasant place to stay. However, although there were plenty of birds to photograph on the boat trip (thanks to Douglas the boatman) we found rather less animals than expected.

The guides were very helpful and did their best but the animals were just not around for us."

"Of the 7 campswe stayed at across Botswana, Zambia and Malawi, this was undoubtedly the best for us and we were delighted with the 4 nights we stayed there. It was exactly what we wanted. We could have ended our African trip right there as we did and saw almost everything we expected to cover over our 26 days holiday. We would liked to have stayed longer.

Wonderfully scenic with a mixture of woodland and a grassland plateau, plenty of animals and birds, including lion cubs, leopards, huge herds of buffalo ,hipoos, elephants etc,it was just what we wanted. Furthermore from the photographers point of view the lighting is magnificent. The walking safari therefore was the most pleasant of the several we did in the various other camps.

Turning to the people at all levels there is only one word needed - fantastic,

If we go again to the Lower Zambezi it will only be to Old Mondoro"

"We did not get a good feeling about Nikwali from the moment we arrived. The rooms are splendi but plagued with theiving baboons which is very annoying. The camp is also not in the Park and traversing the Reserve to the Park becomed tedious. Overall the camp had the feeling of being there too long and running in auto mode and we were just another couple of travellers passing through.

Having said that our guide Fred pulled out all the stops to find us some animals, but as the Park is large we spent a long time speeding along gravel roads to change areas. Nonetheless we did get lions and a single leopard (at night), as well as the more normal giraffes, antelopes (various) etc.

2 nights was enough!"

"Nsefu is anol historic camp but beautifully maintained with lots of wildlife close by and elephants wandering through every day

Here we were very fortunate to be the only guests for two of our three nights stay and unusually our hosts were both African, Chris and Braston and they made us feel part of their family.We really did have fun and we commend them both for the care and attention they put into our stay.

The game drives day and night were also outstanding with two different leopards everyday, lions and a multitude of other animals. Undoubtedly this camp is well worth visiting and comes close to our favourite Old Mondoro..

But there is another outstanding opportunity from this camp, a visit to the local Kawaza village. This we did and were entertained royally by the villagers and to complete our day did a very successful game drive going there and back. The village is part of Project Luangwa a charity which helps educate the children and adults of the area. It is strongly supported by Robin Pope Safaris. Do visit this village if you choose Nsefu. It is an education in itself.

We concluded our stay with a safari walk to our next camp, Tena Tena, about 9Km away"

"This is a new camp that replaced the original in 2012. Consequently everything is new and many of the photographs on the Internet are of the old camp and are not representative of the new one. We felt that the camp suffers somewhat from being too far away from the water compared with several of the other camps we visited. Viewing life on the water from the camp was therefore impractable.

Again like its sister camp Nsefu, we saw two leopards every day and an array of other animals but the lions evaded us.

The outstanding part of the game drives was at night when a wide range of nocturnal animals could be seen.

This was a pleasant stay worth doing in conjunction with its sister camp Nsefu."

"A fairly standard International hotel but the highlight was the restaurant for dinner. Wonderful food and wine at a surprisingly low cost.

Make sure you have some warm clothes as the town is very windy and cold."

"This lodge has the most fantastic situation of any we have been to, The rooms are second to none and it has every facility you could ever need.Furthermore for part of the time we were the only guests and had first class attention from all the staff. It is a perfect place to take time out and relax.

However we went there for game viewing intent on seeing the black rhino of which there are said to be 12. They also claim a population of all the Big 5. But what a disaster the game drives turned out to be.

First of all the weather was quite unseasonal, cold, blowing and often raining. But the lodge had the solution - overall waterproof ponchos and blankets, suitable for almost any wet weather. Consequently we set off on the first cool evening to find that the guide had only provided one blanket between the two of us and had failed to test the night lamp which was defective.. I froze and the night drive was uneventful!

On the following morning we set off early for a full day game drive to try and find the Rhinos. When the rain set in at 10.00am we discovered that the guide had failed to pack the ponchos and the hot flask of cofee was cold. We abandoned the drive and I made a complaint to the manager which resulted in us being given a new guide that afternoon.

So we did a simple but pleasant drive and boat safari with new guide Samuel complete with ponchos and blankets. He really pulled out all the stops to save the day and to a point he succeeded,

Our final day we set out an hour earlier than normal with Samuel to try and find the rhino and others of the Big 5. We drove for more than 12 hours covering many miles in the park but the nearest we got to the Big 5 was a single buffalo. Samuel and Scout Mike really tried hard but the animals were just not there.

So to conclude we suffered at the beginning by carelessness of the guide and his management who failed to check the vehicle facilities were correct. Samuel did all he could, but we would never recommend Mkulumadzi as anything other than a place to unwind, never as a game viewing destination."