Mumbo Island

an incredibly relaxed secret retreat

Mumbo Island Lodge is located in the Lake Malawi area of Malawi.

This little place is deliberately simple and environmentally friendly. Here’s a few words from the owners which illustrate this commitment …

“Everything that can be done locally is done either here on the island or in the village, using locally sourced materials. This is very different from many upmarket African lodges, where interior decorators import almost everything they use.

And we recycle as much as we can. For example, when we re-covered the cushions recently, some of the chitenge fabric was still in good condition, so we paid a local tailor to make 100 new shirts and dresses for the orphans of Chembe Village.”

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Mumbo Island is in five simple rooms, located on a small islet which is accessed by a raised boardwalk. Each has a private outdoor bathroom with a bucket shower.

There is also a less attractive Family Suite back on the main island, with two bedrooms.

Activities

Mumbo Island provides access to a range of activities, not all of which are usually included in the room rate …

• Diving : not included
• Snorkelling
• Kayaking
• Motorboat safari
• Sailing
• Walking
• Village visits

At the southern end lies Lake Malawi National Park, which covers an area of 95 square kilometres. The primary purpose of the reserve is to protect the incredible marine diversity and two thirds of the area is lake surface.

The other third of the national park is made up of the Nankumba Peninsula around the settlement of Cape Maclear and nine offshore islands including Domwe Island, Mumbo Island and Nankoma Island.

Getting there

The property is usually accessed by road transfer from Lilongwe (often connecting in from the South Luangwa area of eastern Zambia), which takes around 4 hours to the jetty at Cape Maclear, from where it is a motorboat transfer of around 45 minutes.

Connections to other properties around Malawi are mainly made by road.

a fantastic alternative to the Indian Ocean