Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Zambia adventure activities are governed, almost without exception, by water level. Almost every adventure activity in Zambia is controlled by water level. The Zambezi’s annual flood decides when the gorge can be rafted, when Devil’s Pool can open, and when the canoe channels of the Lower Zambezi are at their best. Booking well here means booking in the right month.

Whitewater rafting

Rafting is the best known of all Zambia adventure activities.

Below Victoria Falls the Zambezi enters the Batoka Gorge, a zigzag of basalt walls containing a sequence of large-volume rapids. It is one of the most serious commercially operated rafting stretches in the world, and the big-water rapids reach the top of the commercial grading scale.

The season moves with the river. Operators generally run the long low-water section from around August through the new year, and a shorter high-water section from the new year into mid-year. Around the annual flood peak, which typically falls in early May, the river is normally closed to rafting for roughly a month either side.

It is a full day, it involves a climb out of the gorge at the end, and it is not a gentle introduction to whitewater.

Devil’s Pool and Livingstone Island

A natural rock pool on the very lip of Victoria Falls, reached by boat from the Zambian bank to Livingstone Island. It typically operates from about mid-August to late December, and always subject to the day’s water level. There is no equivalent from Zimbabwe — this is a Zambian-side experience only.

The Victoria Falls Bridge

The 1905 bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe carries a cluster of gorge activities — bungee jumping, a gorge swing, a zip line and a bridge tour beneath the deck. The deck sits about 128 metres above the low-water level of the river. These are operated year-round and are not water-dependent in the way the river activities are.

Walking safaris

Walking is the oldest of Zambia adventure activities and still the defining one.

Zambia’s defining activity, developed in the Luangwa Valley and offered from most of its bush camps, as well as in Kafue, North Luangwa and elsewhere. A walk is led by a licensed walking guide accompanied by an armed scout. It runs in the dry months, broadly June to October, when the grass is short enough to see and the ground is firm.

Canoeing the Lower Zambezi

Multi-day canoe trips run on the Zambezi below Kariba, past the Lower Zambezi National Park. You paddle the channels between islands, camp on sandbanks, and pass elephant and hippo at water level. The season follows the park — roughly May to October.

Fishing

Tigerfish are the draw, on the Zambezi above and below the falls, on Lake Kariba and on the Lower Zambezi. Lake Tanganyika in the far north offers something different again. Fishing seasons and any closures are set locally; confirm with the operator.

Seeing the falls from the air

Two Zambia adventure activities take place above the falls rather than on them.

Microlight and helicopter flights operate over Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. The microlight carries no camera of your own — operators supply the images — and both are weather-dependent.

Zambia adventure activities by season

Where to go next

Sources

Facts and figures on this page are drawn from the following. Where sources disagree we say so in the text.

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls
• Zambia Tourism Agency — Victoria Falls