The LSK Expat Guide

Most guides tell you what a city is like to visit. This one tells you how to move there.

The LSK Expat Guide is written for people relocating to Lusaka with a deadline attached — a posting, a contract, a family move — and built around the decisions that come with one. Which neighbourhood actually suits your commute and your children's school. How the rental market really works, and what to inspect before you sign. The healthcare and evacuation cover to arrange before you land. The banking, the SIM, the household help, the car. The paperwork for bringing a pet. And the honest shape of the first three months, when the questions come faster than the answers.

It is deliberately direct. No padding about atmosphere or where to find the best coffee — that is a different kind of book. This one is the practical map: what to handle, in roughly the order it becomes relevant. Written from inside the city, in a single editorial voice, and current to 2026.

What's inside

• Before you move — the order of operations, visas, shipping
• Choosing where to live — neighbourhoods read by the decision, not the mood
• Renting & setting up home — terms, inspections, utilities, household help
• Money, admin & getting connected — banking, Mobile Money, SIMs, driving
• Buying or importing a car — the buy-vs-import decision, fully
• Money & cost of living — what life actually costs, and the currency question
• Tax, work & setting up — residency, PAYE, TPIN, registering a business
• Healthcare — private care, evacuation cover, where the community goes
• Families & schools — the established international schools, day-to-day life
• Safety, realistically — by area, by time of day, what tends to go wrong
• Staying healthy, day to day — water, malaria, the everyday kit
• Food, shopping & provisioning — where the week gets stocked
• The resident's calendar — what each season asks of daily life
• Religion, language & the local grain — the texture nothing else tells you
• Finding your feet — the first three months, and how the social world opens
• Bringing pets — the requirements, the timeline, getting them here
• A starting directory — schools, clinics, agents, banks, providers