Anantara opens a Kafue River tented camp with a floating gym in Zambia
Rooms start from £5,500 a night on full board, and reaching the camp still means an 11 hour flight, another two hour flight and a five hour drive.
Anantara has opened a tented camp on the banks of Zambia's Kafue River, a property three years in construction that finally welcomed guests in September 2026. The camp is elevated three metres above ground on stilts, its villas and public areas linked by winding raised walkways over a stretch of the 1,576km river.
The setting is the point. Elephants, hippos and crocodiles cool off in the water below, monkeys move through the surrounding trees, and eagles and kingfishers call overhead. A mother elephant and her calf were seen grazing at the camp's entrance shortly after arrival, alongside the resident wildlife.
The camp comprises ten Kafue Pool Villas, each named after a native tree, and three Horizon Terrace Suites reached by glass lift. The suites are elevated 14.3 metres above ground and offer 360-degree views over the river and Kafue National Park, a vantage point rarely built into a safari camp.
What is inside the villas
Each Kafue Pool Villa opens onto glass sliding doors facing the river, with a generous living area stocked with a fridge and coffee machine, a large bed, a walk-in wardrobe and desk, and a built-in spa suite for in-room treatments. A dressing table and a central bathtub complete the interior.
Double sinks look onto the terrace, and the shower doubles as a sauna and steam room. Outside there is a private plunge pool, an outdoor shower, a seating area and a kitchen, so guests can dine in the villa at any hour rather than at the main camp.
Interiors were designed by Meg Ralph, founder of her own South Africa based studio, who avoided the animal prints and colonial references common to game-lodge design in favour of abstract wall hangings built from geometric shapes and curved wicker light fixtures used as sculptural pieces.
What the camp offers guests
Each stay comes with a dedicated villa host who runs the day's itinerary, from delivering early morning cappuccinos to escorting guests to the safari vehicles. Dawn game drives through Kafue National Park are led by rangers who point out leopards, elephants, warthogs and camouflaged birdlife along the way.
River safaris are offered as a calmer alternative, with hippo sightings described as routine rather than rare. Dining runs from the main restaurant, Luzuba Harvestry, to a sunken pontoon floating on the river itself, plus cocktails made with local 1964 Gin served out in the bush.
A fully equipped Technogym fitness suite floats on the water overlooking the wildlife below it, described as the first of its kind on the continent. In the evenings, guests gather around three large fire pits in the main resort area with mocktails to close out the day.
What the wider group is known for
Anantara is best known in Zambia for The Royal Livingstone at Victoria Falls, and the group has positioned the new tented camp as a more sustainable form of safari stay, building it around the river landscape rather than against it. Access remains demanding for now.
Reaching the camp currently means an 11 hour flight, a further two hour flight and a five hour road transfer, though Anantara says a private airstrip is planned to shorten the journey. Guests are advised to pack long trousers and long sleeves, avoiding blue and black, to deter tsetse flies.
We named Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar and Al Baleed Resort Salalah among the standout properties in our guide to Oman's best luxury hotels, where canyon and coastal settings do the same work the Kafue River does here. We have also rated Anantara Al Jabal among the region's most restorative retreats in our guide to Oman's best spas.
Anantara Veli featured in our review of the Maldives resorts that turn a spa stay into a multi day wellness reset, built on Ayurvedic programmes and overwater rooms. The Kafue River camp applies that same instinct for setting-led design to a landlocked river rather than an atoll.
We have also covered Zambia's wider hotel landscape in our review of the best hotels reimagining African luxury, a category the Kafue River camp now enters directly by pairing a remote wilderness setting with a design brief that steers away from the genre's familiar colonial cues.
Rooms start from £5,500 per room per night, based on two people sharing a suite on a full board basis that includes premium beverages, game drives and massage treatments, positioning the camp firmly at the upper end of Zambia's safari accommodation.
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Images: Anantara Kafue River
