Malawi

Malawi's nickname - the warm heart of Africa - was coined for a tourism campaign and turned out to be accurate, which is not how these things usually go. Lake Malawi occupies a third of the country's surface and contains more species of fish than any lake on earth; swimming in it is swimming in an aquarium that has no walls. The lakeshore towns are unhurried in the way of places where the water sets the pace. Blantyre has a colonial-era architecture and a food scene that has been quietly improving for years without making much noise about it.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: lakeshore lodge routes, Liwonde game drives, Blantyre's market kitchens and the chambo recipes that every family insists theirs is the definitive version of.