What a visitor's money does in Zambia: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Zambian Kwacha (ZMW) · 1 EUR = 22.2 ZMW · 1 USD = 19.7 ZMW
Activities — the gorge, Devil’s Pool, the flights over the falls — are quoted in dollars and most operators take cards; the town, the taxis and the market run on kwacha. Unlike Victoria Falls town on the other bank, Livingstone has its own working currency and machines that dispense it, so you do not need to arrive with a stack of dollars. You do need dollars in cash if you are crossing to Zimbabwe.
Avoid: counting on a machine for US dollars, which you need for Zimbabwe
Use: Zanaco, Stanbic, Absa, FNB — on Mosi-oa-Tunya Road
Kwacha for the town, dollars in cash for Zimbabwe and the visa. Activity operators take cards.
Nshima — stiff white maize porridge — with relish, chicken or bream is what the town eats, and the restaurants on Mosi-oa-Tunya Road serve it at a fraction of lodge prices. The riverfront lodges do the long lunches and the sundowners. Zambian bream from the Zambezi is the fish to order.
Camp catering, three meals and tea, and the bush camps cook remarkably well over very little. In Mfuwe, nshima — the stiff maize porridge — with relish is the everyday meal, and the village’s restaurants are where you will meet it. Bream from the river turns up on lodge menus.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
