Lusaka or Livingstone: where to base yourself in Zambia

Most first trips to Zambia end up weighing the same two places against each other, Lusaka, the capital, and Livingstone, the small tourist town at Victoria Falls, and the question of where to base yourself is really a question about what kind of trip you want, because the two cities do quite different jobs and the best answer, for anyone with more than a few days, is usually not to choose at all.

What each is for

Livingstone is built around a single, world-famous thing. It is compact, geared to visitors, and organised almost entirely around the Falls and the river, the rafting, the sunset cruises, the adrenaline and the spray, and a couple of days there will cover what it does best before the small-town quiet starts to show. Lusaka is the opposite proposition: a large, working capital that does not perform for tourists and gives its pleasures up slowly, in its food, its galleries, its markets, and the texture of a real African city going about its business.

How to think about it

If your trip is short and singular, Falls, photo, gone, Livingstone alone will do. But the traveller who treats Lusaka as a mere transit point on the way south tends to miss the more interesting half of the country, and the better-shaped trip uses the capital as the place to land, settle, and understand Zambia before heading to Livingstone for the spectacle, rather than the reverse. The two are a short flight or a day's drive apart, which makes pairing them genuinely easy.

How to spend the Lusaka end of that trip well, where to base yourself, what to see, and how to read a city that does not hand itself over at a glance, is exactly what the forthcoming Lusaka City Guide is written for. It is on its way; you can see what's coming next and register your interest here.