Africa Wild Truck is a local tour operator in Africa, based in Malawi, established in 2007. We design travel experiences that reveal an authentic Africa and challenge the long‑standing stereotypes about the continent. Guests who travel with us discover a place that is vibrant, alive and undergoing profound change.
At AWT we are specialists in Southern Africa tours, creating off‑route journeys across Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. To truly know these places is to come away with red‑stained clothing, the scent of the earth on your skin, memories of wild landscapes, market stalls piled with fruit and veg, warm encounters with locals and plenty of curious faces.
Travelling with AWT means choosing sustainable, responsible tourism. Africa has so much to give, and through our work we aim to give back as much as we can. For this reason we collaborate with several non‑profit organisations and are directly involved in numerous conservation and community development projects.
The benefit of choosing a local tour operator lies in relying on people with first‑hand knowledge of the territory and its communities. Africa Wild Truck’s itineraries are born from our lived experience in Africa, which now spans more than twenty years.
Relying on a local tour operator gives you access to genuine, in‑depth knowledge of places and populations. Our AWT itineraries are crafted from more than twenty years of life in Africa.
Why Malawi? For its remarkable cultural traditions and varied ecosystems, and for being one of the most authentic countries you can visit.
From Turin to Mulanje, our first journey
AAWT was founded by us, Stefano Pesarelli and Francesca Guazzo. The idea to start a local tour operator in Africa came to us on a trip, naturally. In 2004 we completed a trans‑Africa journey, leaving Turin and covering 23,000 km in four months in a FIAT Campagnola. We crossed the deserts of Libya, Egypt and Sudan, reached the Ethiopian highlands, continued through Kenya and Tanzania, and finally arrived at the Mozambican coast.
After countless nights under the African sky, it became clear what we wanted to do with our lives. So at the end of 2004 we launched Africa Wild Truck and then settled in Mulanje, Malawi.
The tea plantations on the mountain’s slopes have been our home for more than twenty years. To be closer to the people who travel with us, in 2025 we opened a second operational office in Blantyre, Malawi’s oldest city and the country’s commercial heart.
Africa evolves and so do we
We’ve travelled in every possible way: by public transport, packed into pickups amid cabbages and chickens, by bike, by train, on traditional boats and on foot. Then came the iconic orange truck, an ex‑military vehicle converted to carry up to 14 guests. A magnificent vehicle, ideal for rough terrain and the rainy season.
With our faithful truck we organised safaris, nature tours and photography workshops; we visited villages, set out on trekkings on Mount Mulanje and took bicycle excursions. We crossed the continent and watched it change around us.
As Africa has changed, so have the needs of AWT guests. That’s why the journeys we offer today are less spartan and better tailored to your wishes, while keeping the wild spirit of authentic discovery intact, now using 4×4 vehicles that deliver greater comfort and safety.
Stefano, Francesca and the tour operator Africa Wild Truck team
We have deep knowledge of the region and its communities. Stefano is an expert guide in African flora and fauna, an excellent travel companion and an internationally recognized, award‑winning photographer. Francesca, an architecture graduate who wrote her thesis on the small UNESCO‑listed Ilha de Moçambique, is passionate about sustainable, responsible tourism. She led the conservation restoration of the AWT lodge & camp in Mulanje and oversaw the selection of the properties we work with.
We have always promoted land protection and supported local development. For this reason we work with locally recruited professionals. The Africa Wild Truck team now includes more than 30 collaborators, counting permanent staff at the tour operator and lodge, the sustainability coordinator, drivers and tour guides.
