Methodology
Most travel sites present every number with the same confidence, whether it came from a receipt or a guess. We label ours differently depending on what stands behind them, because the difference is the only thing that makes any of them worth reading.
Method last reviewed September 2026
In short
Every figure on this site carries three things: what it covers, who published it, and when we last checked. A rate without a unit and a date is not information, it is decoration.
We keep a hard line between a price we have verified ourselves and a price someone else publishes. Both can be useful. Only one of them is us vouching for it.
When sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than resolving it quietly in whichever direction looks tidier.
01 · The labels we use
02
A number is not verified because it appears in several places. Weak sources repeating each other is the most common way a wrong figure becomes an established one, and volume never raises a source’s rank.
A number is not verified because it looks plausible, because it is the figure we published last year, or because a competitor uses it. It is not verified because someone at NYASA remembers paying roughly that — a recollection is a reason to go and check, not evidence.
And a rate an operator publishes is not a rate we verified. We will show it to you, name the operator and date it. That is a different claim and it gets a different label.
03
It happens more than you would expect. At the time of writing, two current official Malawi government web properties publish different fees for the same single-entry visa: the e-Visa portal FAQ says US$50, the Department of Immigration fee schedule says US$75.
There is an obvious temptation to pick one. It makes for a cleaner page, and almost nobody would notice. But a traveller who budgets US$50 and is charged US$75 has been misled by us, not by the government, and the fact that we guessed correctly half the time is no defence.
So we publish both, say which source each came from, and tell you the practical thing: the amount shown in the official application is the one you will pay. The disagreement itself is useful information.
04
Travel pricing in Malawi moves for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone being dishonest. Fuel costs shift. Seasons change what a lodge can charge. Exchange rates move underneath dollar-quoted rates. A camp changes hands.
So every figure carries the month we last checked it, and volatile categories get re-checked more often than stable ones. A park entry fee can sit for a year. A fuel-linked charge cannot.
An indicative journey price and a single service tariff are also different things, and we try never to let them sit side by side without saying so. A US$30 boat safari and a US$2,450 fourteen-day route are not comparable numbers — one is an activity, the other is a fortnight of accommodation, transport and arrangement.
05
Tell us. Prices we publish are checkable, and travellers on the ground frequently know something changed before we do. A correction with a date and a source is the single most useful thing anyone can send us, and it is how several figures on this site got better.
The Cost Index is where this all lands: current Malawi rates, each one labelled with the evidence behind it and the date we last looked.