He then chose to travel and found work when the Dutch governor of the Cape, General Jan Willem Janssens sought a German tutor for his son.

After his death, in 1826, together with the banker Wilhelm Beer, he arranged for the sale of the score of Oberon to the Berlin music publisher Adolf Martin Schlesinger on behalf of Weber's widow Caroline.

[3][4] Together with Alexander von Humboldt, Lichtenstein organized the annual meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Berlin in 1828.

[6] Lichtenstein was responsible for the creation of Berlin's Zoological Gardens in 1841, when he persuaded King Frederick William IV of Prussia to donate the grounds of his pheasantry.

[8] Among species named by Lichtenstein are the Australian king parrot (Alisterus scapularis), the crowned sandgrouse (Pterocles coronatus), and the Cape night adder (Causus rhombeatus).

Lichtenstein's Reisen im südlichen Afrika in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806 was translated into English by Anne Plumptre, and published in 1812 as "Travels in Southern Africa in the years 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806".