Kafue National Park, located in the heart of Zambia, is the country's largest at 22,400 square kilometers (almost similar in size of Wales). In spite of its lack of popularity, Kafue is home to a wide range of landscapes, geographies, birds, and animals.
The park's varied landscapes—including floodplains, marshes, miombo woodland, and large open plains—add a new dimension to game drives & walking safaris. The park's size means that the concentration of wildlife is not as high as in other smaller parks, but it doesn't imply that game viewing is any less spectacular.
KNP (and all of Zambia) has two distinct seasons: the dry and the wet. The months of May through October are dry, while the months of November through April are moist. Depending on the year and weather, many KNP camps close in early November and reopen in April, May, or June. Because of the Park's seasonality, several roads (including some of the principal routes become unusable to self-drivers.
We observe the rains taper down to isolated showers in April. It's a lovely month with plenty of greenery and fresh air, but the seasonal wildlife tracks are still impassable for the most part.
Rain is uncommon as we enter the dry season in May. Yet many seasonal campgrounds remain closed, and seasonal roads and tracks remain unusable.
The safari season officially begins in June and July. The rains have ended, and most of the bush can now be driven through. There will continue to be some rough spots to navigate in Busanga and Nanzhila. Daytime highs average 25 degrees, while the nights can dip into the 20s. The average temperature is 6 degrees, but out on the plains it may be as low as minus 20.
After a few scattered showers in October, this is often when the rains begin in earnest. After the sweltering conclusion of the dry season, the rains come as a welcome reprieve, and the daily highs cool down to a bearable 30 degrees Celsius. Beautiful weather is possible, although most seasonal campgrounds will be shut down by the beginning of the month.
These are the months, where one can even have full-day downpours, which are unusual even then. The weather is typically sunny with heavy downpours. Daytime highs average approximately 28 degrees C and lows hover around 18 degrees C.