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Slow travel in Africa

Travelling in Africa is about presence, not performance. Let Africa reset the way you travel this January in its quiet season, writes Lorraine Kearney. 

When a place really gets under a skin you have to keep going back, each time more intentionally than the last. You simply can’t help it.

The view of my hammock from the river at Kaingu
It was dark when we arrived at Imvelo Safari Lodges’ Camelthorn Lodge in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. We had travelled from Victoria Falls, stopping to visit the Community Rhino Conservation Initiative white rhinos on Ngamo communal land on the park’s southern boundary.

We’d also spent time with the Cobra Community Wildlife Protection scouts at their HQ, getting to know them and watching their fearsome training. (Trust me, if you’re in the area, you need to do this.)

It had been an awesome day, but there was still much to see on this visit to the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area and we left before dawn the following day. Kaza is huge – five countries and massive distances covered by road, boat and air. Even train (the Imvelo Safari Lodges’ Elephant Express is a gentle and happy way to trundle across the plains).

Cue plenty of filming, photographing, editing, uploading those perfect social media posts.

What that busy trip did was spark a deep need to return, though to do it slowly, step by step, country by country, and stop and savour my time. Dive in and smell the carmine kigelia flowers rather than have a camera or phone constantly sandwiched between me and the scenery.

Why Slow Travel Belongs in Africa

After a month recently wandering around Zambia doing exactly that (my November adventures are a whole other story), my thirst is not even nearly quenched, and this January, I have resolved to return, again, this time choosing a different Kaza nation. Perhaps Namibia.

On that first trip, we had stopped at Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana at its driest. A truly transformational experience. I drove onto the pans as one person, and some hours later drove out another one entirely, touched somehow by the vastness of the world and the extraordinary luck that had led me to be there, at that moment.

There is, as far as the eye – and even your binos – can see, absolutely nothing. Endless white and pale blue. I have longed for that unforgiving stark desert beauty ever since. This time, I might even leave my camera at home.
Sunset in Makgadikgadi Pans

Less Content, More Connection

I am not alone in this return to a desire for experiences IRL, as the cool kids say. Surprisingly, perhaps, Gen Z is (almost) right here with me. In its latest survey of the demographic, the Pew Research Center found that 44% of teens say they have cut back on using social media. Just as many say the same for their smartphone use. (Teens, Social Media and Mental Health, 22 April 2025)

More anecdotally, we’re all after a digital detox – especially young folk. A recent Harris Poll/Quad study of consumer behaviour found 81% of Gen Z respondents wish it were easier to disconnect from digital devices and are actively seeking more authentic, tactile, offline experiences. (81% of Gen Z report wishing it was easier to disconnect from digital devices, 13 May 2025)

Go outside, touch the grass. A walking safari in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is as digitally detoxed as you can get. There is no WiFi signal, no invisible airways bouncing around. You can almost touch the stillness.

Except it isn’t still at all; by your second hour you’ve climbed into an entirely different noise, one of constantly moving trees, grasses, animals, birds wittering, cicadas singing. An ancient invisible energy is bouncing around and it feels a lot like home.

Or get into a little boat and float along any of the mighty rivers or swamps that stitch Zambia together. Kayak even. Believe me, dodging crocs and hippos on their turf gets the adrenaline going much faster than yet another rage bait post on your socials.

When Space Becomes the Experience

Calm the farm. Sit in your pool all afternoon at Royal Zambezi Lodge on the edge of Lower Zambezi National Park and watch the warthog families snuffle and play on the grass floodplain in front of you. Elephant, buffalo, baboon, they all drop by.

In Kafue National Park, I resolved to never leave the hammock on my deck at KaingU Safari Lodge . It is a perfect, solitary place under the trees from which to watch the birdlife, and the huge hippos in the Kafue River. No, I do not have photos. What I do have are incredible memories.

Of course, all of these behaviours have trendy names: Posting Zero – instead of quitting entirely, many Gen Z users are reducing their output, consuming content but not contributing; de-influencing – actively pushing back against rampant consumerism and influencer culture; authenticity over polish – rejecting the highly curated, “perfect” feeds of the past in favour of raw, real and relatable content.

A spirit of renewal seems to be afoot. A new (at least for Gen Z) way of being; offline, in the moment, less performance, more raw. It’s exactly the kind of thing slow travel brings. Mindful in the parlance of the millennials. Gen X’ers like myself? We just call it living.
Taking in the view at Konkamoya
Kicking back at Kasabushi
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