The Lower Zambezi National Park and surrounding Chiawa Partnership Park are vintage big game territories, with superb viewing potential for elephant, buffalo and lion. While encountering these animals on foot is thrilling and slightly terrifying, the best possible way to get close to them for significant periods of time is on a game drive. Your guide will turn off the ignition and sit tight for up to half an hour, as initially startled animals become accustomed and unconcerned about your presence and get on with the business of feeding, resting and sometimes hunting!

Some tracks follow the course of the Zambezi and its tributaries, while others carve through the thick miombo woodland, where animals could suddenly appear as you make your steady way through the trees. As well as the aforementioned big game, this area is excellent for leopard (mainly seen on night drives), hippo, antelope and hyena, with occasional sightings of wild dog. Drives will not dominate your experience of the Lower Zambezi as much as it does in other safari areas due to the wealth of other activities available, but you must fit in at least one morning and night game drive to fully appreciate the enchanting wildlife.