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Category: Zanzibar Travel Guides

  • Is Zanzibar Safe? A Practical Guide for 2026

    Is Zanzibar Safe? A Practical Guide for 2026

    Is Zanzibar safe? For most visitors, yes.

    The official advice is calmer than the reputation, and it doesn’t agree with itself. The US Level 3 notice dates from October 31, 2025 and never names Zanzibar.

    Canada, updated September 9, 2026, sits a level below it.

    What actually catches travelers out is ordinary. A taxi, a road, a rip current, a mosquito.

    Crime and Scams

    Three consular sources describe the same pattern, and it isn’t violent robbery. It’s the unlicensed taxi, and OSAC says it happens in Zanzibar in particular.

    • Taxis and cash machines. Travelers hail a car at the airport, a hotel or on the street and are then taken to withdraw cash. The FCDO records forced ATM withdrawals and money transfers reaching 5,000 pounds.
    • Bag snatching. Thieves work from cars and motorbikes, so a bag on the road side of the sidewalk is the one that goes.
    • Where to pay more attention. Canada singles out Stone Town, Nungwi, Paje and Jambiani for increased caution, citing theft in crowded tourist areas including beaches.
    • Assault. The FCDO reports incidents of assault and sexual aggression against foreigners, including at beach resorts. OSAC notes the same, and says it is of concern in Zanzibar.

    Two claims circulate without a source behind them: drink spiking, and armed robbery on named beaches. Neither appears in FCDO, OSAC or Canadian material.

    Transportation and Roads

    Roads are the risk that gets least attention and causes most harm. WHO estimated 10,052 road deaths in Tanzania in 2021, a rate of 15.8 per 100,000 people.

    How you moveWhat the official sources say
    Road, any vehicleZanzibar’s own statistics office recorded 29 road accidents in July 2026, up from 27 in June, a rise of 7.4%. The series is monthly and public
    Ferry, Dar es Salaam to ZanzibarCanada calls the service regular and reliable. The US advises taking the high-speed ferry and buying tickets inside the terminal or online
    Ferry, other routesLess reliable and often overcrowded. Canada attributes accidents to overloading and poor maintenance
    Domestic flightsOn June 3, 2025 the EU banned all air carriers certified in Tanzania from operating into Europe. The ban covers flights to the EU, not the hop from Arusha to the coast

    Nobody has measured the risk of piki-piki, the motorbike taxis. That gap is worth knowing when someone tells you they are fine.

    Cultural and Social Norms

    Zanzibar is majority Muslim and its rules are social rather than posted. Resorts are their own world. Step outside one and they stop applying.

    • Dress. The line the FCDO draws is between resorts and everywhere else, on Unguja and on Pemba alike: shorts or sleeveless tops away from tourist areas, and above all in Stone Town, may cause offense.
    • Ramadan. Under the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism guidelines of February 11, 2026, restaurants outside hotel premises close during daylight and reopen after sunset. Hotel service for registered guests continues as normal. In 2027 Ramadan is expected to begin around February 7.
    • Photography. Military sites, equipment and personnel are off limits.
    • Same-sex relationships. Zanzibar prosecutes under its own penal code of 1934, separately from the mainland and with its own sentences. Travelers who read the national position and assume it covers the archipelago are reading the wrong statute.

    Health and Food Safety

    Malaria is the health risk that matters here, and the belief that the archipelago is free of it is wrong. The CDC treats Zanzibar inside its Tanzania guidance and advises malaria tablets for every area below 1,800 m, which covers all of it.

    • Malaria. Travelers have flown home from these beaches with falciparum malaria and some have died of it, which is the short answer to anyone who tells you the coast is clear. The figures and the prevention are in my article on malaria in Tanzania.
    • Hospitals. The US Embassy lists 24-hour facilities in and around Stone Town, at Kivunge in the north, at Makunduchi in the south, and on Pemba. The embassy lists no tertiary hospital anywhere in the archipelago, and the air evacuation route it names runs to Nairobi, not to the mainland.
    • Decompression. No official source lists a hyperbaric chamber in the archipelago. Divers should plan on that basis.
    • Water and food. No official source says anything specific about water in Zanzibar. Treat it as you would any tropical coast, and be wary of anyone quoting a rule that doesn’t exist.

    Ocean Safety

    Nobody is watching the water here, and Canada is the only government that says so outright. What follows is what that means in practice, because the warning itself is a single sentence.

    • Tides. The range is wide. At Chwaka Bay on the east coast of Unguja, the spring tidal range measures about 3.2 m against 0.9 m at neaps, with two high waters a day. That measurement comes from one site on one coast, so read it as an order of magnitude rather than a number for your own beach.
    • Rip currents. Canada records them as common and reports several drownings a year on beaches it describes as generally unsupervised. No lifeguard service exists to pull you out, so the only reliable read on conditions is a local one, taken that morning.
    • Boat trips. No published Zanzibar Maritime Authority rule requires life jackets on tourist excursions, no licensing regime for dhow and speedboat operators has been found, and no official incident record exists. That absence, not a regulation, is why the count falls to you.
    • Diving. Australia’s advice notes that operators don’t always follow safety and maintenance standards, and that applies to adventure activities generally.

    For the wider picture on the country, read Tanzania safety and things to know before visiting Tanzania.

    Read also

    Last verified September 10, 2026. Advisories and local rules change without notice, so check the sources below before you travel: where this page and an official advisory disagree, the advisory is right. Nothing here is medical or legal advice.

    Sources

  • The most beautiful islands in Tanzania

    The most beautiful islands in Tanzania

    Tanzania with the Zanzibar’s archipelago and its 800 kilometres of coastline overlooked on the Indian Ocean, is a dreamy destination for those who are looking for heavenly beaches and untainted sea. White sand, marine reserves, amazing sunsets, luxuriant nature, dhows that slowly slide on the water, history, folklore, relax and this isn’t over.
    “Zanzibar is a big and noble island”, wrote Marco Polo, but what we call Zanzibar is a constellation of 75 dreamy islands, as the biggest one, Unguja that has the city of Zanzibar as its capital. Then, there are Pemba and Mafia, rough diamonds of the Indian Ocean.

    Unguja

    Unguja, favourite destination for honeymoons or an original New Year’s Eve, has infinite beaches and a green hinterland full of history, legends and smells. Also here there are safari, but this time they are blue, for a dive among the dolphins, tropical fishes and coral reefs. And this is not over.
    Relax on white beaches or leave to the discovery of the hinterland, let the spices markets smells or a swim in the fabulous Menai Bay’s crystal clear waters inebriate you. Explore the virgin forest and the mangroves or walk with no destination through the full of life small streets of Stone Town.

    Mafia

    Mafia is a wild island that lives of land and fishing, for this reason it is not well known by the tourists. Thanks to Mafia Island Marine Park, the sea bottoms are remarkably preserved and they offer unique snorkelling and diving experiences. Here you will observe easily the whale shark, admire the coral reefs and swim among more than 400 different species of tropical fishes, turtles and dugongs. The mainland is full of palm trees, baobab, forests and mangroves, protected habitat of a very rich fauna.

    Pemba

    Pemba, green pearl of the Indian Ocean, combines the crystalline sea with the lush nature of the hinterland. A marine park and a forest reserve safeguard an amazing biodiversity still far from the mass tourism. Pemba’s sea is transparent until 50 meters of depth and it offers the most beautiful diving points in the world. In the forest there are very interesting endemic species and an incredible variety of settled and passenger birds. In Pemba you can explore a pristine nature without giving up on a luxurious hospitality in a five-star resort with a view on the sea bottoms.

    Pangani

    Even the coastline boasts some magic site for a different tourism. Just 50 km from Tanga, Pangani is waiting for you: white sand, desert beaches, welcoming resorts and assured relax. Discover the Maziwe Island Marine Park’s bottoms aboard a dhow or walk the city streets to discover its ancient history and the obsolete charm of colonial buildings. To conquer this piece of heaven still reserved to a few connoisseurs, you have only to book a private flight departing from Dar Es Salaam or Arusha.

  • Tanzanian Flag

    Tanzanian Flag

    Tanzania, or rather, the United Republic of Tanzania, was founded in 1964 from the union of the recently independent Tanganika with the Republic of Zanzibar.
    As the name Tanzania comes from the merging of Tanganika and Zanzibar, so in the new flag, adopted on 30 June 1964, are present the flag of Tanganika, a black stripe with yellow borders on a green bottom, and the horizontal blue, black and green tricolour of Zanzibar.

    flag tanganica

    Tanzanian flag has a rectangular form with a 2:3 ratio and it is divided in two triangle from a diagonal stripe that starts from the lower left corner (the shaft side) and goes to the upper right one. The diagonal provision breaks with the horizontal whole of the two previous flags and it wants to explain the equality of the founding states of the new nation.

    tanzania flag today

    The upper triangle is green, the lower one is blue, the stripe is black with yellow borders. The colours symbolism is very strong: green stands for the vegetation and the agricultural resources of the Country, blue represents the rivers, the Great Lakes and the Indian Ocean, yellow, that is sometimes described as gold, evokes the mineral resources of Tanzania, while black symbolizes the population.

    Equipped with an administrative semi-independence status, a president, a parliament, a government, and a constitution, Zanzibar runs independently its internal affairs. In this context and with the pressure of independent movements, Zanzibar decides in 2005 to adopt its own flag.

    bandiera-zanzibar

    The blue, black and green tricolour is finally reinstated with a new insert of the United Republic of Tanzania’s flag. But the sovereignty of the Union is not called into and the Tanzanian flag is the only one able to wave lawfully in the international requests.

    The national flag and its colours come back also to the Country’s emblem where a man and a woman, symbols of equality and cooperation, are represented on the sides of a warrior’s shield.

    zanzibar

    Each of them hold an elephant tusk and, at their feet, a cloves and a cotton plants grow, that are emblematic Tanzanian cultivations. The shield is divided in four stripes: in the coloured gold upper one, that is referred to the mineral riches of the Country, a flame, symbol of freedom, illumination and knowledge is represented; the second stripe corresponds to the flag; in the third, red, are designed an axe and a hoe, symbols of the fertility of ground and work; finally, the white and blue lower one symbolizes the ground, the coasts and the waters of the Great Lakes and the Indian Ocean. The lance that raises from the bottom up of the shield represents the freedom defence. Under there is the representation of Kilimanjaro and the nation motto: Uhuru na Umoja, “Freedom and Unity”.