I am travelling through the region and have only heard amazing things regarding Livingstone. Does anyone have any tour suggestions or programs such as volunteering to see Zambia properly? I am a young adult travelling solo and I have looked at Topdeck but want to make sure I am making the best decision.
I note you also have asked about wildlife volunteering in South Africa. I did a few of these overland truck type tours in my early days of traveling in Africa approx to My travel style has moved more upmarket since, so I can compare the various experiences. Therefore, to make the tours cheap, often the safari time is quite limited and not necessarily of the highest quality. Unfortunately, the only way to improve the quality and amount of safari time is to spend a lot more money.
These tours are also often quite fast paced, covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time. You could travel on a budget, but much more slowly, by traveling independently using local transport and finding short group safaris to join in East Africa , or in Zambia , staying in one of the budget camps outside South Luangwa where you can pay for activities on a per activity basis.
However, as a young female this might well be a bit of a daunting prospect. As I said, I did these sort of tours when I was younger and I found them a great introduction to the continent of Africa, which gave me a taste for safaris and has led me to return later in life for more in depth and more expensive! So I would still recommend them and I loved them at the time, you can always go back and do something a bit more quality or a bit more adventurous later in life when you have a bit more money and experience.
If you want to take a look at wildlife volunteering and some semi-independent travel, I would suggest looking at Wildlife ACT in South Africa. I spent 8 weeks with them in Tembe elephant reserve in they do wildlife monitoring not breeding and totally with wild animals. This is also a great way to spend some quality in depth time in a game reserve without spending a fortune.
