Mozambique (Bradt Travel Guide)

This travel guide to the beautiful beach country of Mozambique by Philip Briggs is the gem of all travel books I've read. Published by Bradt Travel Guide, this book on Mozambique (one of the world's most unknown travel destinations) is an excellent travel resource for all travellers. The attention to detail in describing all the places is guided by a genuine wish to reveal the beauties of this African destination. This book is literally the only travel guide book that is dedicated exclusively to Mozambique and it is describing these off-the-beaten-track countries that Bradt excels in.Mozambique is a wonderful travel destination for traditional tourists, luxury travellers, backpackers and Peace Corps volunteers alike. The nation is finally emerging from its trauma of civil war to be one of the finest democracies in Southern Africa. This Portuguese-speaking country has an extensive coastline of 2400km and is much bigger than Texas or South India or France for comparison. This country also comes with an bewildering array of tribes and languages in its different parts and the book goes a long way in helping you navigate it. The author has taken an lot of effort to structure his book in a way that travellers can clearly choose for themselves the chapters that they want to focus on. The ten provinces of Mozambique (plus the capital region of Maputo) are all covered through their separate chapters, focusing on their provincial capitals and secondary towns. In addition to extensive information on the main cities/towns, the book has separate chapters on the Quirimbas archipelago, Bazaruto archipelago and the Ilha de Moçambique island. This book structure is significantly different from the province-based chapter organization in the previous editions of this book. This is a welcome change because tourists are not civil administrators and the information that they seek is based on popular destination names within the country. The chapter on the Ilha de Moçambique island is covered in loving detail by the author and describes at length the Portuguese and Arab influence on this important piece of land.The author Phillip Briggs is a noted Africa safari specialist and thus the reader will find that this book contains a wealth of information on the wildlife of the country. Sadly Mozambique has suffered the most horrible poaching and wildlife massacres in Africa and hence most of the land-based mammals have been sorely depleted. The marine wildlife has also suffered similarly due to pollution and maladministration. Yet the author still goes out of his way to provide us all important information that makes Mozambique a wildlife travel destination. The chapter on Gorongosa is extremely well-written and useful. No less great are the two section on the Nyassa province (containing the beleaguered Niassa reserve) and the Limpopo national park. The author provides important travel information on the roads and chapas available to travel this under-developed and under-built country. The lion-hearted updater Sandra Turay has done a marvelous job in traveling the country to visit all the major parks, restaurants, hotels and hospitals so that the guidebook contains the most up-to-date information for 2017.Mozambique is unique for various reasons, especially for its Portuguese speaking population and its extreme under-developed status. Any travel guide book purporting to cover it cannot do it by covering the region as a whole but must rather focus on the country separately so that travellers are aware of its peculiarities when compared to other Southern African countries. This book does an amazing job on that aspect and I count it as a great blessing for the people of Mozambique. That statement might sound like hyperbole but given the sparse information available on this country(even online) it would have been a daunting task for first-time tourists to traverse this country if this guidebook did not exist. The love of traveling Mozambique by the author and the other contributors is evident throughout the book and that is the most important ingredient in any guidebook. The only quibble that I have with this book is that the chapters on central provinces of Zambezia and Manica are quite dry and sound superficial as if they were written just to nominally cover all the provinces of Mozambique. This is entirely understandable because these places are still somewhat hard to access and don't have much to offer even for the most enterprising of tourists. All in all, this book is the jewel in the crown of all Bradt Travel guidebooks, though the book on Northern Tanzania Safari or Somaliland by the same author might give it a run for its money. Having this guidebook is an absolute must for all travellers to Mozambique, regardless of whether you are a luxury tourist to one of its many beach paradises or a poor budget traveller like me. Please read it and even those who were not planning on there right now (also like me) will be enthused to visit this sun-blessed, forest-conserving nation of smiling people.

There are not a lot of options and I have previously read guides by Bradt about, and been to, Ethiopia and Nigeria. If you are going to Mozambique, this is a good book. I bought this used and maybe not the very latest edition but it is a great resource and there is a lot to learn.

Very helpful. Up-to-date information.

Great travel book. I’ve relied on Lonely Planet for most of my trips but was recommended Bradt for Africa. This book offers good background on Mozambique and regions.

Si tratta di una guida di livello orai altissimo, consueto ad altre Bradt, per altri paesi. Documentata, affidabile, con premesse storiche e valutazioni "politiche" posate e moderate nei commenti. Pratica per informazioni che, pur a distanza di alcuni anni, si rivelano valide ed utilissime. Ovviamente bisogna conoscere la lingua inglese

Excellent guide, I bought the same brand for Senegal and I think it’s a good collection. You can find all the useful details and some no-touristy tips. Go for it!

Excellent travel guide. Complete of every information you need from both the local context and naturalistic point of view