Coverage / Malawi
Malawi
Eastern Africa
Where Malawi earns a visit: 5 activities across 7 curated destinations.
5 activities · 7 pairings · 11 verified providers
What you can do in Malawi
Trekking / Hiking
- Mount MulanjeMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctMount Mulanje rises straight out of the tea estates of southern Malawi as a single granite massif, its plateau ringed by peaks and cut by river gorges and clear rock pools. At its centre stands Sapitwa, 3,002 metres, the highest point in Central Africa and the goal of most treks. You climb through montane forest onto open grassland, sleep in simple stone huts scattered across the plateau, and reach the summit on a dawn scramble over boulders and slabs. Mist can close in fast, which is why every party climbs with a registered local guide. The reward is a wild, roadless highland of waterfalls, endemic Mulanje cedar and long views toward Mozambique.
- Nyika PlateauMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNyika does not look like the rest of Africa. Malawi's largest national park is a rolling montane plateau above 2,000 metres, all open grassland, wildflower meadows and pockets of evergreen forest, closer to the Scottish Highlands than the bush. That openness is the point: you can walk for hours in clear air among roan antelope, eland and zebra, with leopard on the plateau and the occasional long view toward Lake Malawi far below. After the rains the grassland fills with orchids, more than a hundred species of them. Trails run for days between simple stops, and the sheer space and quiet set it apart from anywhere else in the country.
Wildlife Safaris
- Liwonde National ParkMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctLiwonde is Malawi's wildlife comeback in one park. Strung along the Shire River, it holds the country's densest elephant population, hippo and crocodile in the hundreds, and, since African Parks took over in 2015, black rhino, cheetah and lions all brought back to ground that poaching had emptied. The river is the heart of it: you track game from a boat, drifting past elephant drinking at the bank with fish eagles overhead, then switch to a vehicle or walk. Birdlife runs over 400 species, from Pel's fishing owl to the palmnut vulture. For a small park it delivers a remarkable, and remarkably close, concentration of animals.
- Majete Wildlife ReserveMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctMajete is the reserve that proved African conservation could be reversed. By 2003 poaching had stripped it almost bare, with no elephant, no lion and few large animals left. African Parks took it on, fenced and restocked it, and it is now Malawi's only Big Five reserve, home to lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and black rhino across miombo woodland and granite hills above the Shire. Because it sees far fewer visitors than the big-name parks, game drives here feel private, and the story of the place, told by guides who watched it come back, is as compelling as the animals. Sable, nyala, eland and Lichtenstein's hartebeest fill out the plains game.
Best months at a glance
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