Visit Kafue Where to stay

Under canvas

Camping in Kafue National Park

Kafue is the best-value serious safari park in Zambia for a camper: $20 entry with no self-drive surcharge, pitches from $25, and campsites run by the families who built them. It is also a park the size of Wales where wild camping is banned everywhere, so the campsites are not just where you sleep. They are how you route the whole trip.

If you only want the answer

You camp at a handful of operator-run sites: Kasabushi in the central sector ($35 wilderness site, $45 campsite), Mapunga in the north ($45), Musungwa on Lake Itezhi-Tezhi at the southern boundary ($25), McBrides' Camp in the central-north, KaingU's private campsites in the east-bank GMA, and Bongololo on the Busanga route if you can confirm it still operates, because its website went offline in 2026. Mayukuyuku closed in December 2025. The DNPW camping fee adds $5 per person per day on top of every pitch, you book by emailing each camp directly, wild camping is prohibited everywhere, there is no campsite in the southern sector, and there is no public camping on the Busanga Plains at all.

The structural fact: campsite planning is route planning

Two rules shape every Kafue camping trip. First, wild camping is prohibited everywhere, in the park and in the surrounding Game Management Areas; you sleep at a designated campsite or you do not sleep legally at all. Second, the distances are enormous. Kafue is 22,400 km² with a legal driving day of 06:00 to 18:00, tracks that run at 20 to 40 km/h, and long stretches with no camping at all: nothing in the entire southern sector, nothing on the Busanga Plains, and one big gap in the middle where Mayukuyuku used to be.

So you do not plan drives and then look for a campsite. You plan the chain of campsites and let the drives follow. A north-to-south traverse, for example, only works as Mapunga to Kasabushi to Musungwa, with the legs between them sized to fit inside gate hours with a margin for the surface. Book the chain before you enter, carry the confirmations offline, and never plan a leg that assumes the next site will take a walk-in.

What a night actually costs

The pitch is only part of the number. The DNPW camping fee of $5 per person per day is a park charge that comes on top of whatever the campsite operator bills you, and the published schedule is headed 2025 and marked subject to change, so confirm at the gate. Park entry is $20 per person per day, with no self-drive surcharge because Kafue is a Category B park, plus $15 per day for a foreign-registered vehicle under 3 tonnes. A self-driving couple camping at Kasabushi therefore spends about $155 a day all-in: two pitches, two camping fees, two entries and the vehicle.

Pay cash. The park operators association states plainly that no gate has card facilities or a nearby ATM, whatever some 2026 guides claim. Carry US dollars in undamaged recent-series notes, plus kwacha.

The campsites, by name

Rates below are the operators' own 2026 figures from their rate cards and tariffs, gathered July to September 2026. The DNPW $5 camping fee and park entry are extra everywhere.

SiteWhereCamping rate (intl)What is actually there
Kasabushi CampCentral sector, Kafue River off the Spinal Road$45 campsite, $35 wilderness siteRiverbank pitches with private fireplaces, glamping and chalets as fallback, published rate card, zero phone signal
Mapunga Bush CampNorthern sector$45 ($30 SADC and residents)12 berths, 8 on the river under a wild fig, private hot-water ablutions, firewood, plunge pool; open 1 May to 31 Oct
Bongololo CampsiteNorth, on the route toward BusangaUnconfirmedRustic wilderness site; its website went offline in 2026, so confirm it still operates before you drive
McBrides' CampCentral-north, Kafue-Mushingashi confluenceAsk the campCampsite beside an owner-built bush camp, hot spring on the property, open March to December
Chunga (DNPW)Central, near park headquartersUnverifiedThe old state-run camp beside the airfield; nothing bookable online, ask at the gate and have a fallback
KaingU Safari LodgeNamwala GMA, east bankAsk the lodge3 private campsites with their own hot-water ablutions; no daily park fee while you stay in the GMA
Musungwa Safari LodgeLake Itezhi-Tezhi shore, at the park boundary$25 ($20 SADC)Lakeside campsite with a restaurant, bar and self-catering houses behind it; open year-round
MayukuyukuKafue River bend, 8 km off the M9ClosedShut since 1 December 2025 for renovation under new ownership, no reopening announced; do not plan around it

Two closures shape current planning. Mayukuyuku, long the cheap option in the middle of the park, closed on 1 December 2025 and both its websites have gone dark. Bongololo's own website went offline in 2026 with no published rates or contact; if you want that overnight on the Busanga run, ask African Parks via visitkafue.org, or a northern operator such as Mapunga, who handles its bookings now, and do not set out on a dead link.

Nothing in the south, nothing on the plains

The southern sector has no campsite at all, and this catches out almost everyone planning a self-drive up from Livingstone through Dundumwezi Gate. Nanzhila Plains Camp used to take campers and no longer does, which is why the old advice still circulates in forums and printed guides. Coming from the south with a rooftop tent, your first legal pitch is Musungwa on Lake Itezhi-Tezhi, roughly 140 km of dry-season park track beyond the gate, so the Nanzhila sector is a long drive-through or a stay-in-a-camp proposition, not a camping one.

The Busanga Plains are the other blank on the camping map. There is no public campsite on the plains and no version of a night up there in your own tent; that corner of the park is fly-in territory, five seasonal tented camps that are physically dismantled every wet season. What a camper can do is base at Mapunga and take its Busanga day trip, about 12 to 14 hours, $120 in 2026, offered 15 July to 31 October when the plains are passable. It is a very long day and it is also the only budget route to the park's most famous ground.

How booking works

There is no central portal and no online calendar; African Parks runs the park but sells no beds and no pitches. Every campsite is booked directly with its operator, by email or through the contact form on its website, and the owner-run camps answer their own mail. June to October is the season, sites are small, Kasabushi's riverbank pitches in particular sell out, so write weeks ahead rather than days.

  • 1. Fix your route first, as a chain of campsites with legs that fit inside the 06:00 to 18:00 gate day.
  • 2. Email each camp with the template below. Kasabushi and Mapunga publish their rates, so you know the numbers before you write; Musungwa's tariff is published too; McBrides', KaingU and any Bongololo arrangement are ask-first.
  • 3. Confirm the total in writing: pitch rate, the $5 DNPW camping fee handling, and any deposit. Most camps take a bank or card deposit even though the park gates are cash only.
  • 4. Book activities at the same time if you want them, especially Mapunga's Busanga day trip and any boat trips, which run on minimum numbers.
  • 5. Carry every confirmation printed or saved offline. Much of the park has no signal, and the gate wants paper.

The email, ready to copy

This is everything a camp needs in one message, which saves you a round-trip of questions:

“Hello, I would like to book a camping pitch. Dates: [arrival] to [departure], [x] nights. Party: [x] adults, [x] children with ages. Vehicle: [type, e.g. Hilux with rooftop tent]. We are self-driving and self-catering. Could you confirm the pitch rate, whether the $5 DNPW camping fee goes on your invoice or is paid at the gate, whether the site has water and firewood, and how you would like a deposit paid?”

Two useful additions if they apply to you: which route you plan to arrive by, so the camp can warn you about the current state of the track, and whether you want to join a game drive, boat trip or the Busanga day trip on given dates, since those book by minimum numbers.

Fuel, food and the resupply logic

There is nothing to buy inside the park: no fuel station, no shop, no reliable resupply of any kind. The logic is fixed by three towns on the rim. Mumbwa, on the M9 124 km west of Lusaka, is the last reliable fuel and the last real shopping before the central and northern sectors. Itezhi-Tezhi town serves the south, with fuel and basic shops near the dam. Coming from Livingstone, fill up and stock up in Kalomo before Dundumwezi Gate, and remember there is no camping in the sector beyond it.

Size the fuel maths honestly. A Mumbwa to Mapunga to Kasabushi to Musungwa loop runs several hundred kilometres of low-gear track between fill-ups, so carry jerrycans for a margin of at least a third over the plotted distance. The same applies to drinking water, two days spare, and food for the whole stretch between towns. Firewood is the one thing you should not bring from outside the region or collect in the park; buy it where your camp sells it, and ask when you book.

Which site suits you

First time camping in big-game country: start at Kasabushi. It is the closest thing Kafue has to an easy campsite, reached off the M9 corridor and the Spinal Road, with riverbank pitches, private fireplaces, hot showers, glamping and chalets to retreat to, owners on site and a published rate card that removes all guesswork. Musungwa is the other soft landing: a real lodge with a restaurant and bar behind your tent, year-round opening and the cheapest pitch in the system, the right base for the Itezhi-Tezhi and Ngoma country. Both suit a first Zambian self-drive; neither demands more than a competent high-clearance 4x4 in the dry months.

Fully equipped and self-sufficient, with recovery gear, a fuel margin and satellite comms: the north is the reason to come. Mapunga puts you under a wild fig on the riverbank in the sector African Parks itself points self-drivers to, with the Busanga day trip on the doorstep, and McBrides' adds a hot spring and a stretch of river where you will rarely see another vehicle. Bongololo, if you can confirm it, is the honest overnight that breaks the long Busanga run. And whatever your setup, treat the DNPW camp at Chunga as a curiosity to ask about at the gate, not a plan to rely on.

Sources