Health & safety
Travelling Safely in Malawi: Roads by Daylight, the Lake by Local Advice
Malawi is a long, narrow country beside its lake, and a visit usually links the lakeshore with a wildlife park and the mountains of the south, travelled mostly by road. The parts of a trip that ask for the most care are the long drives between them, the swims in the lake and a climb on Mount Mulanje. Most of that care is a matter of timing and of asking locally: when to set out, where to swim, who leads the way.
Updated 2026-10-05
Before the trip
The first thing to read before the trip is the current travel advice of the traveller's own government. A travel clinic, visited well before departure, advises on malaria tablets and on vaccinations. Two health rules are part of the rules of entry to Malawi: a yellow fever vaccination certificate is required of travellers coming from a country with a risk of transmission, and a traveller health check form is completed for arrival, online in advance or on arrival. Medical facilities in Malawi are basic, above all outside the cities, so travel insurance that covers medical evacuation is part of the preparation.
Everyday precautions
On foot, a visitor keeps to places where people are about and does not walk in quiet places, least of all after dark. Valuables go into the hotel safe, and copies of the passport and other documents are kept apart from the originals. Food and drink offered by a stranger are politely declined. A guide or a lift — for a walk, an outing on the lake or the way back after an evening out — is arranged through the hotel or lodge, not accepted from a stranger who offers one.
On the road
Traffic in Malawi drives on the left. Many visitors travel between the lake, the parks and the mountains in a car with a driver; a visitor who drives settles with the hire company which licence to drive on. Seat belts are worn, and journeys between towns are made by daylight, on roads with little or no lighting at night and livestock that wanders onto them. Public minibuses and pick-up trucks are often in poor condition and overloaded. Fuel shortages are frequent, with long queues at the pumps, so the tank is filled wherever fuel is to be had.
Swimming in the lake
Lake Malawi is the country's place to swim, snorkel and kayak, above all along the southern lakeshore around Cape Maclear. Bilharzia, a parasite of still, reedy shallows, is present in places in the lake, so a swim is taken where the lodge or local people say, and a travel clinic is asked about a check after the trip. Crocodiles and hippos live in river mouths and along reedy shores, not on the open sandy beaches, and the same local advice covers them.
Mount Mulanje and the rainy season
Mount Mulanje, the highest mountain in the country, is climbed with the advice of the mountain's own club or guides: with a registered guide, and with the huts on the massif booked ahead. The rainy season runs from about November to April, and floods and cyclones occur in it that can make roads impassable; some park roads and mountain paths are closed or hard going in those months. A journey in the rains allows for a day lost to the weather, and the road ahead is confirmed locally before setting out.
Laws a visitor meets
The penalties for drug offences in Malawi, cannabis included, are severe. Same-sex sexual activity is illegal and can bring a prison sentence. A visitor carries a copy of the passport, with the visa where one was issued. Buying uncut precious stones is illegal, and so is buying, selling, killing or capturing protected wild animals; trade in ivory is illegal too, so neither an uncut stone nor anything made of ivory is a souvenir to take home.