Two nights in Stone Town for the lanes, the night market and the islands offshore, then two on the coast: Nungwi or Kendwa for a beach that swims at every tide, and Paje for the low-tide flats and the kite lagoon.
Got Waystop on this phone? The button drops the whole plan straight into the app. On a laptop, copy it now and paste it into Import later.
Checked October 10, 2026. That’s the day we last confirmed the hours, prices and closed days.
June to October is the dry, cooler season: about 82°F (28°C), a steady south-east wind, little rain and the best months for the beaches. December to February is hot and humid, 90 to 93°F (32 to 34°C) with the north-east wind that brings the kiters, and the two weeks around Christmas is the busiest and priciest of the year. The long rains run from mid-March to the end of May, when some hotels close or discount hard; the short rains are brief afternoon downpours through November and early December. Ramadan moves 11 days earlier each year and falls in February and March in 2027: Stone Town is quiet by day, many cafes shut until sunset, and Forodhani comes alive after dark.
Two nights in Stone Town, in Shangani or Hurumzi so the lanes, the seafront and the night market are on foot. Then two nights in the north: Kendwa if you want to swim at any hour and watch the sunset from the sand, Nungwi if you want the dhow yard, the turtles and more restaurants. Paje or Jambiani on the east coast is the alternative base for the last two nights if you kite or want quiet and do not mind planning your swims around the tide.
Taxis are priced per car, not per person, and quoted in dollars: about $35 to $50 from Stone Town to Nungwi (1 hour 15), about $40 to Paje or the airport (1 hour), and $50 to $60 across the island from the north coast to the east. Agree the price before you get in and have your hotel call the driver. Dala-dalas, the shared minibuses, leave from Darajani in Stone Town when full: TSh 3,000 to Nungwi or Paje, 1.5 to 2 hours, no room for suitcases. Ride-hailing apps barely work outside town. Stone Town itself is a maze of lanes a few hundred meters across; walk it, and let yourself get lost, because every lane ends at the sea or at Creek Road.
Forodhani · 45 min
The Omani fort on the seafront is free to walk: an amphitheater, craft stalls, a cafe in the courtyard. The House of Wonders next door lost its front in the December 2020 collapse and is still scaffolded with no reopening date, so look from Forodhani and move on.
Shangani and Hurumzi · 75 min
Walk inland from the fort with no map and look at the carved doors: square-framed Arab doors with Koranic script, Indian ones with rounded tops and brass studs. Jaws Corner, a small square where men play dominoes, pours kahawa chungu, bitter spiced coffee, for a few hundred shillings.
Mkunazini · 75 min
The Anglican cathedral stands on the site of the last open slave market in East Africa. The $5 ticket (about TSh 12,000) includes a guide, the two underground holding chambers and the chained figures in the pit outside; go in the morning for an hour, before the tour groups.
$5
Mkunazini · 60 min
A canteen a few steps from the cathedral where Stone Town eats lunch: point at the trays of pilau, biryani, octopus in coconut, grilled fish and spinach, and pay in shillings, around TSh 10,000 to 15,000 a plate with a juice.
Darajani · 45 min
The covered market on Creek Road: the fish hall is loudest at 8 a.m., so by early afternoon you get the spice stalls, the fruit and the fabric with half the people. Buy cloves or a kanga here rather than on a spice tour, and hold your bag in front of you.
Shangani · 120 min
The heat peaks now and the lanes empty. Rest, then walk the seafront past the Tembo House and the Africa House to the little beach where the boats to Prison Island wait; you will need it tomorrow.
Forodhani · 60 min
The stalls light up at sunset in the gardens below the fort. Order a Zanzibar pizza (a stuffed crepe fried in front of you), sugar cane juice and grilled cassava, and skip the seafood skewers and lobster on the tables, which were cooked hours ago.
Hurumzi · 120 min
A set three-course Swahili dinner on floor cushions on the roof, $45 a head without drinks. Guests go up from 6 p.m. for the sunset and service starts at 7 sharp, so arrive by 6:45 p.m.; reserve with a deposit the day before, as seats are limited.
$45
Kizimbani · 210 min
The farms are 20 minutes inland; book through your hotel or an agent on Kenyatta Road the day before, about $25 a head in a small group, three to four hours with transport. You crush cloves, cinnamon bark and vanilla and finish with a fruit tasting; buy spices at Darajani, not at the farm gate.
$25
Malindi · 45 min
A local canteen on Malawi Road by the port, back in town: fish or chicken pilau, beans in coconut, a chapati, a passion juice, for a few thousand shillings. Cash only.
Changuu · 150 min
Boats wait on the beach between Forodhani and the Tembo House: about $20 to $30 per boat for the round trip, 20 to 30 minutes each way, and they wait while you visit. Budget $10 to $15 a head in cash for the island fee; the giant tortoises eat spinach from your hand, and the island closes around 4:15 p.m.
$12
Shangani · 30 min
On Kenyatta Road in Shangani, the house where Farrokh Bulsara's family lived before he became Freddie Mercury. The museum inside is open daily 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. for a small fee in dollars; twenty minutes of photographs and letters.
Shangani · 90 min
A shared sunset sail on a traditional dhow from Shangani beach takes about 90 minutes and costs $15 to $20 a head with a drink; book with the same captains in the morning. The Africa House terrace is the dry-land version with a beer.
Shangani · 90 min
Three floors and a roof terrace a street back from the seafront, where you can walk in for grilled changu (snapper) or kingfish, an octopus curry and Swahili and Indian dishes, mains around $8 to $15. 6 Degrees South on the seafront is the pricier alternative with cocktails.
Stone Town to Nungwi · 90 min
A taxi up the one good road north is about $35 to $50 per car and 1 hour 15; the dala-dala (route 116 from Darajani) is TSh 3,000 and about two hours, with no room for suitcases. Check out, and send the bags with the taxi if you ride the bus.
Nungwi · 90 min
At the northern tip the sand drops straight into deep water, so unlike the east coast you can swim here at any hour. Walk north past the hotels to the fishing village, where men still build dhows by hand with adzes and no plans, and the fleet comes in mid-morning.
Nungwi · 75 min
On the low cliff over the beach: fish curry, grilled calamari, a pizza for the children, and the view. Around $10 to $15 a head.
Nungwi · 60 min
A natural tidal pool below the lighthouse where injured and hatched green and hawksbill turtles are kept until release; about $10 (around TSh 25,000), open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a guide and seaweed to feed them. It is the more conservation-minded of the two turtle pools in Nungwi; skip the one that sells swimming with the turtles.
$10
Kendwa · 150 min
Kendwa is 3.5 kilometers south. At low tide you can walk it along the sand in about 45 minutes under the cliffs; at high tide the beach is cut off in places, so take a taxi or a bajaji for about TSh 10,000, then swim on the wider, west-facing beach.
Kendwa · 60 min
The sun drops into the sea at about 6:30 p.m. in front of the whole beach. Take beanbags and a cold Kilimanjaro at Kendwa Rocks or any bar along the sand; the full-moon party at Kendwa Rocks is the loud night of the month.
Kendwa · 90 min
Tables on the beach, grilled kingfish, prawns or a seafood platter for two, cooked over coals; around $15 to $25 a head with a beer. Agree the price of a whole fish or lobster before it goes on the grill, as everywhere on the island.
Kendwa to Jozani · 100 min
A taxi from Kendwa to Paje with a stop at Jozani is about $50 to $60 per car and two hours of driving in all, through the middle of the island past rice paddies and clove villages. Leave the bags in the trunk for the day.
Jozani · 90 min
The red colobus, a monkey found nowhere else, sits in the trees a few meters from the path and does not run. The fee is about $10 to $12 for foreigners, paid by card at the gate, and includes a guide for the 40-minute forest loop and the mangrove boardwalk; open about 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
$12
Paje · 75 min
Twenty minutes on, a cafe on the beach at the south end of Paje: proper coffee, a fish taco or a salad, a fresh juice, with the lagoon in front of you. Around $10 a head.
Paje · 120 min
The east coast sits inside a reef, so twice a day the sea drains across the flats and the beach becomes sand and rock pools. Swim within about two hours of high tide and walk out to the reef at low; check a tide table the night before, because it shifts by about 50 minutes a day.
Paje · 60 min
At low tide the plots of the women's seaweed farms show as rows of stakes in the shallows, and the Seaweed Center in Paje village runs a short tour and sells soap made from the harvest. If the tide is high, walk south toward Jambiani instead: an hour of sand, fishing boats and village life.
Paje to the airport · 150 min
Paje to the airport is about an hour and $40 per car. Eat before you go, at Blue Oyster in Jambiani (grilled fish on the terrace) or back at Mr Kahawa; international flights leave from Terminal 3 and domestic ones from Terminal 2, so be there two and a half hours early.
Loading the map…
Pins are approximate. Tap one for the stop; the directions links open Google Maps.
Abeid Amani Karume International (ZNZ) is 6 kilometers south of Stone Town; international flights use Terminal 3, opened in 2021, and domestic ones Terminal 2. The taxi counter in arrivals charges about $15 to $20 per car to Stone Town for a 15-minute ride, about $40 to Nungwi or Kendwa (1 hour 15) and about $40 to Paje (1 hour); most hotels send a car for the same money if you ask. From Dar es Salaam the Azam Marine ferry runs four or five times a day, takes about two hours and costs $35 one way in economy for non-residents; you need your passport to board and to clear Zanzibar's own immigration desk.
About $40 to $70 a day per person for meals, tours and shared taxis. A canteen lunch is TSh 10,000 to 15,000, a beach restaurant dinner $15 to $25 with a beer, the spice tour about $25, Prison Island about $25 with the boat split two ways, and a cross-island taxi $50 shared. The $44 insurance and the $50 to $100 visa are on top, once.
Plans change. Ask Chat and it proposes a reshuffled day you can apply, or just answers the question.
Yes, for Stone Town and one coast, with the east seen on the way to the flight. A fifth day adds Mnemba or Safari Blue; a week lets you sleep on both coasts and add two nights of safari on the mainland.
Yes. The $44 policy from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation is compulsory for every visitor and is checked at arrival; no other insurer's policy is accepted in its place.
Day 1: the cathedral, the market and the lunch are covered, the lanes are fine under an umbrella and the Tea House dinner has a roof. Waystop's rain plan can add a version of day 2 that holds Prison Island for a dry window, because the boats do not run in a squall.
North if you want to swim whenever you like: Nungwi and Kendwa face deep water and the sunset. East if you kite, want quiet and the long low-tide walks, and can plan your swims around a tide table. Nungwi and Paje are two hours apart by taxi, so most people choose one.
Same country first, then the cities people tend to pair with Zanzibar. Want two or three in one go? String them together in the trip builder.
Add your dates, your hotel and who’s coming, then ask Chat to change anything: it proposes the edit and you tap Apply. Want a long lunch instead of a museum? Just ask. Every place is checked against Google Maps before it lands on your day, and Chat can tell you when to leave for the next stop. Going on to another city? Build a multi-city trip.