Zanzibar

The currency is the Tanzanian shilling (TZS), at about 2,600–2,700 per dollar in 2026, and you'll need both currencies at once: hotels, dives, tours, and park entries are usually quoted in dollars; food, daladala, and market shopping, in shillings. Dollar bills must be from the 2009 series or later, with no tears or stamps, and $100 bills get better exchange rates than small ones. A bill outside that rule is refused. Cards are accepted at mid- and high-end hotels, often with a 3.5% to 5% surcharge, and local restaurants run cash-only. Price ranges for 2026: street coffee or tea 500–1,500 TZS; a plate at Forodhani 5,000–12,000 TZS; lunch at a local restaurant 8,000–20,000 TZS; a main dish at a tourist restaurant 20,000–45,000 TZS; a Kilimanjaro beer 3,000–6,000 TZS at a neighborhood bar and up to 10,000 at a hotel; a guesthouse US$25–50, a mid-range hotel US$70–150, a beach resort US$150–400. Add the mandatory fees before closing your budget: a visa at US$50, local insurance at about US$44, and the infrastructure fee of US$1 to 5 per person per night, charged by the hotel according to its classification. A tip isn't automatic; 5% to 10% at restaurants and something between US$5 and 10 a day for guides is the common practice.

Abeid Amani Karume Airport: 7 km south of Stone Town

Abeid Amani Karume International Airport (ZNZ) sits about 7 km south of Stone Town, and Terminal 3, opened in the early 2020s, handles international flights. A taxi into the city costs US$10–15 and takes 20 to 30 minutes. There's no meter, the price is agreed before getting in, and ride-hailing apps work in the urban area. From Dar es Salaam there are two routes: a 20-minute flight or an Azam Marine fast ferry, crossing in about 2 hours for around US$35 economy class for foreigners, paid in dollars, boarding at the Malindi terminal. Even coming from mainland Tanzania, you go through Zanzibar immigration and get your own stamp in your passport. Tanzania's electronic tourist visa (US$50, single entry, up to 90 days) covers the islands, but since October 2024 Zanzibar also requires mandatory local travel insurance of about US$44, bought on Zanzibar's official portal, even for those who already hold an international policy. The policy is valid for 92 days, and only the one from Zanzibar's state insurer (ZIC) is accepted. Brazilians need a visa and, coming from a yellow-fever-risk country, an international vaccination certificate.

Daladala: a pickup with wooden benches

On the island, public transport is the daladala, a pickup truck with wooden benches in the bed, running numbered routes out of Darajani and Creek Road. The fare is low but varies with distance and follows no fixed schedule. The alternatives are private taxi, shared vans sold by any guesthouse, and motorbike. Renting a scooter requires a local Zanzibar license, obtained from the traffic police for about 25,000 TZS with an international driving permit. Police checkpoints are frequent, with fines for those without one. Traffic drives on the left. Stone Town is only walkable: no car fits through the narrow lanes.

Visitors to Zanzibar rarely face violent crime, and the real problem is opportunistic theft: a bag snatched in a poorly lit Stone Town lane after 10pm, a phone grabbed by a pair on a motorbike along Creek Road, a backpack left on the sand. Don't walk alone along the beach between hotels at night, especially on the stretch between Nungwi and Kendwa, and use the room safe for passport and cash. The papasi at the ferry terminal and in Forodhani are persistent but not dangerous. A firm “hapana, asante” ends the conversation, even if it needs repeating several times on the same block. The most concrete health risk is malaria: repellent from dusk to dawn, long sleeves and prophylaxis discussed with a doctor before traveling. Those arriving from Brazil are required to show a yellow-fever certificate. Tap water isn't for drinking. In the sea, reef urchins justify neoprene water shoes, and the current between the coast and the sandbanks runs strong at the tide's turn. The motorbike is the island's biggest source of trauma: narrow roads, loose sand on curves and helmets that are almost always inadequate. During election periods there have been protests and clashes, including in the October 2025 cycle. Avoid political gatherings and follow local guidance on those days.

Clothing off the beach

In Stone Town and the villages, shoulders and knees covered, for men and women alike. Bikinis, swim trunks and bare torsos stay on the hotel sand; walking through town in a swimsuit is what bothers residents most.

Ramadan in the street

During the fasting month, no eating, drinking or smoking in public between dawn and sunset, not even a sip from a water bottle. Hotel restaurants still serve, but behind closed doors.

Shikamoo before anything else

To anyone clearly older you say “shikamoo,” and the reply is “marahaba.” “Jambo” is Swahili made for tourists; “habari” and “mambo” are the real greeting, and you never start a conversation without greeting first.

Use your right hand to eat and greet

Eating, handing over money, taking change and shaking hands are done with the right hand; the left has a hygienic function. Holding your own right forearm with your left hand while handing something over is a sign of respect.

Ask before taking photos

Ask before photographing people, especially women, children and the inside of the Darajani market. Refusal is common and isn't hostility; it's just how the place works.

Affection, alcohol and discretion

Kissing and hugging in public are frowned upon even between heterosexual couples, and Tanzanian law criminalizes same-sex relations: LGBT travelers generally keep total discretion. Alcoholic drinks only at licensed venues, never on the sidewalk.

Booking the east coast expecting to swim anytime

Booking Paje, Jambiani or Bwejuu expecting to swim at any hour. Twice a day the sea pulls back hundreds of meters over the reef, and at low tide there's no water to swim in near the sand.

A bill older than 2009 gets refused, no appeal

Bringing old or damaged dollar bills. Bills from before 2009, torn or pen-marked, are refused at hotels, exchange bureaus and immigration, and there's no appeal: the cashier hands the bill back and calls the next person.

Visa, insurance and fee add up to about US$100–130

Budgeting only for flight and hotel. On a week on the island, visa, insurance and the nightly fee add up to about US$100–130 per person, and none of the three is optional.

Taxi or “free guide” without agreeing on a price

Getting into a taxi or accepting a “free guide” without agreeing on a price. The papasi, middlemen who approach at the port and in Forodhani, live off commission. The price is set beforehand, stated out loud, and a firm “hapana, asante” is answer enough.

Treating Zanzibar as an extension of the mainland

Treating Zanzibar as an administrative extension of the mainland. There's an immigration post on arrival even for a domestic flight from Dar es Salaam, separate conduct laws, and stricter limits on alcohol and dress than in Arusha or Dar.

Habari?

How are you? (ha-BAH-ri): the reply is “nzuri,” good

Shikamoo / Marahaba

A respectful greeting to someone older and the required reply (shi-ka-MOH / ma-ra-HAH-ba)

Karibu / Asante sana

Welcome / thank you very much (ka-REE-bu / a-SAHN-te SAH-na)

Bei gani?

How much does it cost? (bay GAH-ni): the question that opens any negotiation

Hapana, asante

No, thank you (ha-PAH-na): the polite formula for turning away vendors

Pole pole

Slowly (POH-le POH-le): used both as a concrete request and as a comment on the island's pace

The coral island and its two halves

Unguja is a coral island of about 1,666 km², 85 km long on its north-south axis, separated from the mainland by the Zanzibar Channel, some 35 km wide and less than 50 m deep. It's continental shelf rather than an oceanic island, which explains why its land fauna resembles the mainland's. The highest point, the Masingini ridge, is about 120 m. There's a sharp divide between the west, with deep soil and accessible fresh water, home to the city and the clove plantations, and the east of coral rag, rocky and dry, where people fish and farm seaweed.

Stone Town, unplanned lanes and the baraza

Stone Town occupies a triangular peninsula on the west coast, with a sheltered natural harbor; the arm of sea that once separated it from the Ng'ambo neighborhood was filled in during the 1950s and became Creek Road, where the Darajani market and the daladala terminals now sit. The street grid follows no plan: lanes 2 to 4 m wide run between two- to four-story houses, each with an inner courtyard and a masonry bench (baraza) against the facade, serving as a public living room.

The tide on the east and north coasts

The tide is the most practical geographic factor for a newcomer, and it behaves differently depending on the shore: sharper on the east coast, exposed to the open ocean; steadier in the north, at Nungwi and Kendwa.

Taarab, Zanzibar's orchestra

The music that defines the island is taarab: an orchestra of violin, oud, accordion, qanun and percussion, backing poetry sung in Swahili, a format that arrived from Egypt in the late 19th century through Sultan Barghash's court. Siti binti Saad (c. 1880–1950) was the first East African artist to record (in Bombay, from 1928), and the first to sing taarab in Swahili rather than Arabic, which popularized the genre beyond the palace. The Ikhwani Safaa club, founded in 1905, and the Culture Musical Club, from 1958, keep that orchestra alive to this day. Bi Kidude, who died in 2013 at over ninety, brought the kidumbak and the unyago songs, a female initiation ritual, to the stage and became the international face of Zanzibari music.

Gurnah gave the island's literature world weight

Zanzibar's literature gained world weight with Abdulrazak Gurnah, born on the island in 1948, exiled to the United Kingdom after 1964 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021. Novels such as “Paradise” (1994) and “By the Sea” deal with caravan trade, German and British colonialism and exile, the same history the museums of Stone Town tell, seen from inside. Long before him, Princess Salme bint Said, daughter of Sultan Seyyid Said, eloped with a German merchant in 1866 and in 1886 published “Memoirs of an Arabian Princess,” likely the first autobiography by an Arab woman, with court life told by someone who grew up inside it.

Islam organizes daily life

Daily life is organized by Islam (the islands' population is Muslim in an estimated proportion above 95%) and by the sea's calendar. Women on the southeast coast have farmed seaweed (mwani) on stakes in the lagoon since the 1990s, an activity that accounts for a significant share of household income in the villages; in Nungwi, wooden dhows are still built without a drawn plan. Soccer has its own federation, affiliated with CAF, and the local team, the Zanzibar Heroes, competes in regional tournaments. Alcohol consumption is legal but restricted to licensed venues, and public nightlife is concentrated in Shangani, Kendwa and Paje.

“Paradise,” by Abdulrazak Gurnah (1994)

A novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar in 1948 and the 2021 Nobel laureate in Literature: a boy is handed over as debt collateral and crosses East Africa in a trade caravan on the eve of the First World War. It tells from the inside the economy that built Stone Town.

“Memoirs of an Arabian Princess,” by Emily Ruete (1886)

Salme bint Said, daughter of Sultan Seyyid Said, eloped with a German merchant in 1866 and wrote in Hamburg what is likely the first autobiography by an Arab woman. She describes the inside of the palaces, the harem and the clove plantations in domestic detail.

“As Old as My Tongue” (2006), by Andy Jones

A documentary about Bi Kidude, taarab singer and mistress of the unyago rituals, who died in 2013. It serves as an introduction to the island's music and to women's role in Swahili culture, with footage of rehearsals at Stone Town's clubs.