Traveling in Malawi on a budget: our route.

We visited Malawi in February  2015 

during a complete trip around southern and eastern Africa 

Malawi is a compact country, half of it, it´s the lake, Lake Nyassa, shared with Mozambique.

As we visited Malawi in a complete southern and eastern Africa trip, we just visited a few places on route between Zambia and Tanzania, so our trip was quite limited to a few places.

If you want, you also can reach the mountains and go to a few game parks. 

Route in Malawi: 
from January 26^th til February  4 ^th 2015
 ( 9 days/ 9 nights).

From Chipata - Mchinji (Zambia) to Songwe (Tanzania)

-         Lilongwe (1 night, couchsurfing)

-         Senga Bay - Salima (3 nights, dorm)

-         Nkhotakota (1 night, room)

-         Nkhata Bay (3 nights, room)

-          Karonga (1 night, room)

Total: around 800 km (tarred roads).

 

• Nkhata Bay is a backpackers stop, as is Cape Mc Clear.
• Senga Bay is a good place to see the fishermen.
• You will probably pass Lilongwe, the capital city, but nothing to stop you there.

If heading to the south, there are mountains around Zomba and Dedza. Liwonde National Park in the south too is the main game park in Malawi. Likoma Island near Mozambique is also famous on the lake.


Will I see more travellers around Malawi?
You will cross a few backpackers around the lake. We did in Nhkata Bay, Senga was almost empty.
Malawi is a popular route to connect Tanzania and Zambia and most of the travellers choose Nhkata for a couple of nights and take long night buses (Dar, Livingstone). If you have time, travel day time, slowlier, you won´t get tired. During Christmas holidays,  Malawi is a popular destination for young white South Africans, who travel by car. Out of this time, you won´t see many overlanders in Malawi. Malawi just sees tourism in a few places.
Depending if out of season or holiday time, very different situation in Malawi.