Dar es Salaam → Nakonde (Zambia border) via Mbeya

Built with Chinese help in the 1970s as the Uh Railway, the TAZARA line runs 1,860 km from the Indian Ocean to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, climbing through Mikumi's acacia country, the Uluguru foothills and the tea highlands around Mbeya before reaching the Nakonde border. It is a proper long-distance railway: dining car, changing landscapes, and a carriage-full of traders, students and the occasional overlander. Most tourists ride the Dar-Mbeya stretch by day, breaking in Mbeya for the southern parks and Lake Malawi, or continuing to the border for northern Zambia.