Travel deep dive
Wildebeest in the West, Shoebills in the North
Far from the parks most visitors see, Zambia keeps two great wildernesses of open water and grass. Liuwa Plain, in the far west beyond the Zambezi's Barotse floodplain, is a sea of grassland where wildebeest gather in their thousands when the rains begin. The Bangweulu wetlands, in the north, are a maze of swamp, channels and floodplain, and one of the surest places in Africa to see the shoebill. Both take time and effort to reach, and both reward it.
Updated 2026-10-09
Liuwa Plain and the wildebeest
Liuwa Plain National Park is a flat, open grassland dotted with pans and islands of trees, north-west of the floodplain town of Kalabo. When the first rains fall, around November, wildebeest move onto the plain in great herds, in what is often called the second-largest wildebeest migration in Africa, and they stay through the green months that follow. Zebra and tsessebe graze among them, and the park's hyenas, living in large clans, and its lions follow the herds.
The birds of the plain
When the pans fill, Liuwa becomes a gathering place for water birds: wattled and crowned cranes, storks, egrets and flocks of waders on the shallow water. The plain's open horizons, the light of the storms and the movement of the herds make it a place for photographers as much as for game viewing.
The Barotse floodplain and the Kuomboka
Between Liuwa and the town of Mongu lies the Barotse floodplain of the upper Zambezi, the heartland of the Lozi people, which the river floods each year. When the water rises high enough at the end of the rains, the Litunga, the Lozi king, leaves his palace at Lealui on the plain for his palace at Limulunga on the higher ground near Mongu, paddled across the flood in the royal barge. The ceremony, the Kuomboka, is held only in years when the flood is high enough, usually in March or April, and draws crowds from across the country.
Bangweulu and the shoebill
The Bangweulu wetlands spread to the south and east of Lake Bangweulu, a vast area of swamp, papyrus, channels and seasonal floodplain. The shoebill lives here, a tall grey bird up to about 1.4 metres high with a huge clog-shaped bill, the only member of its own family and closest to the pelicans. It is found with local guides from the community who know the swamp, by canoe or on foot across the floating vegetation. The floodplains hold great herds of black lechwe, an antelope found only here, along with tsessebe and sitatunga.
Kasanka and the bats
On the road to Bangweulu lies Kasanka National Park, a small park of woodland, rivers and patches of evergreen swamp forest, and the two are often visited together. From about late October to December, millions of straw-coloured fruit bats gather to roost in one of those patches of forest, and at dusk they rise over the trees in a stream that darkens the sky, watched from platforms at the forest's edge. At dawn a hide high in a tree above the papyrus looks out over the haunts of the sitatunga, the shy swamp antelope.
Reaching the remote parks
Both areas are remote. Liuwa is reached by light aircraft, or by road across Kafue National Park and through Mongu and across the floodplain to Kalabo, then on sand tracks that need a four-wheel drive and experience; it is open from about June to December, as the floods allow. Bangweulu is reached by light aircraft or by a long drive on dirt roads. Accommodation in both is limited to a few camps, booked well ahead, and a visit is usually planned as its own journey or as an extension to a trip through the main parks.