Nkwichi Lodge

Nkwichi Lodge is a beach lodge on the Mozambican shore of Lake Niassa, reachable only by boat. Five individually designed chalets and two private houses sit among fig trees and granite boulders, all hand-built from local stone, wood and thatch. Each comes with a bath carved into the rock and tree-trunk posts holding up the mosquito nets. The lodge takes a maximum of 14 guests at any one time, and no two chalets are alike; one has its own private beach, another a two-level open-plan design cut into the rock face, with a four-poster bed set on a raised platform. No roads run within ten miles of the lodge.

Swim and snorkel in water that holds more indigenous fish species than any other lake in the world, or set off by dhow or dugout canoe. Walk into the Manda Wilderness Community Conservation Area, 120,000 hectares that 16 local villages manage under their own land titles, with Nkwichi as the project's founding partner and the region's largest employer. Eat fresh chambo and kampango fish from the lake alongside produce from the lodge's own farming project, served wherever you fancy that day. For a night away from your chalet, book the Lake of Stars experience: a candlelit dinner on a private stretch of sand, followed by sleeping out under a four-poster bed with the Milky Way overhead.