Malawi · restored by African Parks since 2015
Liwonde, the river park that restocked Malawi
A small park with a big river through it. The Shire draws around 600 elephants, some 2,000 hippos and dense crocodiles to its banks, and a two-hour boat safari here costs $25. Ten years of restoration have turned Liwonde into the park that supplies wildlife to the rest of the country.
Photo: Ludger Heide (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Start here
Everything you need to plan a visit
Entry fees
The official African Parks rates: $30 entry, $25 boat safaris and the small print about how fees are counted.
See the fees →Lodges & camps
From a $12 campsite and a community-run village lodge to Mvuu and Kuthengo. Who owns what, and what it costs.
Browse lodges →Getting there
Two and a half to three and a half hours from Blantyre, about four from Lilongwe, or a charter flight. No scheduled flights exist.
Plan the route →Wildlife
Around 600 elephants, 2,000 hippos, reintroduced lions and cheetahs, and one of Africa's best sites for Pel's fishing owl.
What you'll see →Best time to visit
July to October is peak game viewing, when the park concentrates on the Shire. Month by month, with temperatures.
Pick your month →Things to do
Boat safaris on the Shire for $25, sundowner drives, walking safaris, hides, and self-driving with a community guide.
See activities →Our own research
We priced every park in Africa
We collect the official tariff of every park we cover, convert it, and hold each one to the same standard day. Twenty-nine parks are in the index now, the famous ones included. These three pages come out of that table.
The most expensive safari parks in Africa
Ngorongoro charges $278 for a standard day and $148 of that is the descent into the crater. The ranking straight down, with the line item behind each number.
See the ranking →The most expensive parks for self-drivers
One person, one car, no one to split the vehicle fee or the campsite with. Uganda's foreign-vehicle tariff turns the order upside down.
See the self-drive ranking →Africa's most expensive published safari beds
The highest nightly rates any camp in our network puts in writing, and why the real top of the market names no price at all.
See the rates →Kept current
Latest updates to this guide
Every change to this guide, dated.
- 2026-09-14 Nineteen new pages joined the costs page: the park's comeback history told honestly, health, camping, FlyNyasa and the flights reality, Liwonde town, the green season, Liwonde or South Luangwa, and a page for every month of the year. See the page
- 2026-09-08 Added hire-car and flight links to the getting-there page, marked as paid links because they are. See the page
- 2026-09-06 All outbound lodge links on this site are now nofollow, so a listing here is information, not a traded favour.