Riding the Tazara Railway: a scenic journey across southern Africa

Blue-red locomotive passing at sunset against a backdrop of beautiful landscape

(Image credit: Soft_Light / Getty Images)

last updated 19 January 2024

Winding along remote narrow valleys and beneath escarpments "thick with wild forests", the Tazara Railway takes you halfway across southern Africa – a 1,100 mile journey that is "spectacular in every regard", said Matthew Parris in The Times. Dreamed of by Cecil Rhodes, but only built in the 1970s with Chinese help, the line runs from the Zambian town of Kapiri Mposhi, in the heart of the continent, to Dar es Salaam, not far from Zanzibar's dazzling white beaches. You could do the journey on a luxury Rovos Rail train, as part of a 15-night trip from Cape Town – but my partner and I hopped straight onto the state-run Mukuba Express, and secured a "clean and comfortable" first-class sleeping cabin for £105, all in.

The service runs once a week, and it takes about 43 hours one way – but you should be prepared for last-minute cancellations (there's much else to do in Zambia, if need be) and delays. This is a "cross-continental lifeline linking villages that never see a bus", and the duration of each stop is hard to predict, as hundreds of people may cluster around the train, meeting or waving off relatives, and loading and unloading furniture, machinery, sacks of grain, and so on. But the journey never drags. We chatted to our fellow travellers (mostly local people), bought lovely snacks from platform hawkers (mangoes, fresh paratha breads with salt and lime, hot omelettes "cooked over coals"), admired the stations (some of which are models of "1970s Maoist concrete chic"), and enjoyed simply lying in the heat, listening to voices outside our cabin and soaking up the endlessly varied views.

It was dark when we crossed Tanzania's Nyerere National Park, so we didn't spot any big game – but this was still "the most remarkable rail journey of my life", opening up Africa's vast landscapes to me in a way that road travel never could.