Southern Malawi
Liwonde National Park
Elephant, hippo and black rhino along the Shire River
Liwonde is the park most visitors to Malawi see first, and the one that changes their mind about what Malawi holds. It runs along the Shire River, the only river flowing out of Lake Malawi, and the water is what makes it: elephant come down to drink in the late afternoon, hippo pods sit in the shallows all day, and crocodile line the sandbanks.
Best time May to October
Getting there About four hours by road from Lilongwe and two and a half from Blantyre.
- Boat safari on the Shire River at sunrise
- Elephant herds through the borassus palms
- Black rhino sanctuary
- Over 400 recorded bird species
15 tours include Liwonde National Park · from $150
Lake Malawi
Cape Maclear
Snorkelling the cichlid beds of a UNESCO World Heritage lake
Cape Maclear sits on the Nankumba Peninsula inside Lake Malawi National Park — the first freshwater national park created anywhere in the world, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984. What earned it that status is underneath the surface: several hundred species of cichlid fish, most of them found in this lake and nowhere else on earth.
Best time Year round, clearest September to December
Getting there Roughly four hours from Lilongwe and four from Blantyre, the last stretch on a good tarred road to the village.
- Snorkelling over the mbuna cichlid beds
- Fish eagle feeding off Thumbi West Island
- Kayaking and sunset cruises
- The hike to the viewpoint above the bay
16 tours include Cape Maclear · from $570
Southern Malawi
Mulanje Massif
Sapitwa Peak, 3,002m — the highest point in Central Africa
Mulanje rises straight out of the tea estates of southern Malawi as a single granite block, twenty kilometres across and standing nearly two kilometres above the plain around it. Sapitwa, its highest point, reaches 3,002 metres — the highest ground between Kilimanjaro and the Drakensberg.
Best time May to October
Getting there About an hour and a half from Blantyre by road.
- Sapitwa Peak at 3,002 metres
- Chambe Plateau and the Chambe basin
- Overnight mountain huts
- Mulanje cedar forest
10 tours include Mulanje Massif · from $1,440
Lower Shire Valley · Malawi
Majete Wildlife Reserve
Malawi's Big Five reserve, restored from empty
Majete is the best conservation story in Malawi. By the early 2000s poaching had emptied it — the elephant were gone entirely. African Parks took it on in 2003 as their first project anywhere, restocked it species by species, and returned lion in 2012, completing the Big Five.
Best time June to October
Getting there About an hour and a half from Blantyre.
- All of the Big Five in one reserve
- Morning and evening game drives
- Walking safaris with an armed guide
- Boat rides on the Shire River
5 tours include Majete Wildlife Reserve · from $150
Central lakeshore · Malawi
Senga Bay
The closest stretch of Lake Malawi to Lilongwe
Senga Bay is the lake's nearest point to the capital, about two hours east of Lilongwe through Salima. That proximity is its whole advantage: it is the only part of Lake Malawi you can reach, enjoy properly and return from inside a single day.
Best time April to November
Getting there Around two hours from Lilongwe on a good road — close enough that our Senga Bay day tour leaves after breakfast and is back for dinner.
- The closest lake beach to Lilongwe
- Boat trips to Lizard Island
- Fresh chambo at the lakeshore restaurants
- Gule Wamkulu performances in Salima District
7 tours include Senga Bay · from $110
Central highlands · Malawi
Dedza & Chongoni Rock Art
Central Africa's densest concentration of rock paintings
The Chongoni Rock Art Area, in the forested hills around Dedza, holds 127 recorded sites — the densest cluster of rock art anywhere in Central Africa. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 2006.
Best time Year round, best April to October
Getting there Around an hour and a half south of Lilongwe on the main road toward Blantyre.
- Chongoni Rock Art, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Painted shelters reached on short forest walks
- Gule Wamkulu masked dance
- Lunch and ceramics at Dedza Pottery
2 tours include Dedza & Chongoni Rock Art · from $120
Eastern Zambia
South Luangwa National Park
Where the walking safari was invented, and leopards are ordinary
South Luangwa sits in a wide valley cut by the Luangwa River, about nine thousand square kilometres of it, and it is the park that changed how people go on safari. Norman Carr began taking guests out on foot here in the 1950s, and the walking safari has been the Luangwa's signature ever since — no engine, an armed scout ahead, and a pace that lets you read tracks rather than drive past them.
Best time June to October
Getting there Mfuwe has an airport with scheduled flights from Lusaka, which is how most people arrive.
- Walking safaris with an armed scout
- Night drives for leopard, civet and genet
- Hippo pods in the river and the oxbow lagoons
- Thornicroft's giraffe, found only in this valley
4 tours include South Luangwa National Park · from $1,650
Southern Zambia
Victoria Falls — Mosi-oa-Tunya
The smoke that thunders — a curtain of water 1.7 kilometres wide
The Zambezi drops into a crack in the basalt here, more than a kilometre and a half across and over a hundred metres deep at the highest point. The local name, Mosi-oa-Tunya, means the smoke that thunders, and in flood you understand it immediately: the spray goes up several hundred metres and can be seen from a long way off, and the noise is physical. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1989.
Best time Year round, and it changes completely
Getting there Livingstone has its own airport, Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International, with flights from Lusaka and from Johannesburg.
- The Knife-Edge Bridge in full spray
- The path down to the Boiling Pot
- Zambezi sunset cruise above the falls
- White rhino on foot in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park
1 tour includes Victoria Falls — Mosi-oa-Tunya · from $4,250
Northern Malawi
Nyika National Park
Rolling montane grassland two thousand metres up, and nothing like the rest of Malawi
Nyika is Malawi's oldest and largest national park, and it looks nothing like anywhere else in the country. The plateau sits around two thousand metres up and keeps going — bare, rolling grassland folded into hills, with pockets of evergreen forest tucked into the valleys and almost no trees on the tops. People who arrive expecting Africa find something closer to the Scottish Highlands, and then a herd of roan antelope walks across it.
Best time May to October for game, December to March for flowers
Getting there The usual route is through Rumphi, then west on a rough road to the Thazima gate — roughly a hundred kilometres that takes a good deal longer than the distance suggests, and needs a vehicle with clearance.
- Roan antelope, eland and zebra on open grassland
- Over two hundred orchid species
- Guided walks rather than only game drives
- Wildflowers after the rains
1 tour includes Nyika National Park · from $1,670
Northern lakeshore · Malawi
Nkhata Bay
A deep natural harbour where the hills drop straight into the lake
Nkhata Bay is the northern lakeshore's proper town — a working harbour rather than a resort strip. The hills come down steeply to the water and the bay is deep right up to the shore, which gives it a different character from the long sandy beaches further south: rocky coves, forest to the waterline, and swimming straight off the rocks into clear water.
Best time April to November
Getting there About an hour from Mzuzu by road, and around six hours up the lakeshore from Senga Bay.
- Snorkelling off the rocks in clear deep water
- The Ilala ferry calling at the harbour
- Kayaking around the headlands
- Chikale Beach
3 tours include Nkhata Bay · from $1,670
Northern highlands · Malawi
Livingstonia
A Scottish mission on an escarpment, nine hundred metres above the lake
Livingstonia was founded in 1894 by Robert Laws, after two earlier attempts at the mission had been abandoned to malaria — the first at Cape Maclear. He moved the whole thing up onto the escarpment where the air was cooler and the mosquitoes fewer, and built a town: a church, a school, a hospital, a printing press, and stone houses that look as though they have been lifted out of Scotland and set down above Lake Malawi.
Best time May to October
Getting there From Chitimba on the lakeshore, the Gorode road climbs the escarpment in about fifteen kilometres and twenty hairpin bends.
- The Stone House museum
- The mission church and its Livingstone window
- Manchewe Falls and the cave behind the water
- The view east across the lake to Tanzania
2 tours include Livingstonia · from $1,670