Planning a Trip to Zanzibar: Which Coast to Pick, What to Book and What It Really Costs
Honestly, I booked Zanzibar thinking it was one place. One island, one beach, one of those trips where you land, lie down and do very little for two weeks. Seventeen nights later I had worked out that the north and the east are basically two different holidays, and that the thing nobody had warned me about was the tide.
We were on Zanzibar from 15 July to 1 August 2026, thirteen nights in Paje on the east coast and four up in Nungwi at the northern tip, with day trips to Stone Town, Prison Island, Jambiani, Mtende and the Mnemba atoll in between. This guide is the practical version of that trip: when I would go, which coast I would pick and why, how long you actually need, what seventeen nights cost us down to the category, and the four things I would book before flying.
Planning a Trip to Zanzibar, My Quick Answer
For a first trip I would give Zanzibar ten days, base yourself in Paje on the east coast, add three or four nights in Nungwi at the north, and check the tide times before you book anything. The tide is the single biggest thing that will shape your days, and almost nobody mentions it.
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| Decision | My recommendation |
|---|---|
| Minimum trip | 10 days, or 7 if you stay on one coast |
| Best split | 6 nights Paje, 3 nights Nungwi, 1 in Stone Town |
| Book first | Accommodation, then Maalum Cave |
| Best paid day | Maalum Cave, US$20 each |
| Getting around | Taxis, and a scooter only with the permit |
| The thing to plan around | The tide, every single day |
Our trip ran to seventeen nights because we work as we travel and move slowly. Ten days is the version I would give somebody on a normal holiday.
The Tide Decides Your Whole Trip
This is the part I wish somebody had told me, so I am putting it near the top rather than burying it.
On Zanzibar's east coast the ocean goes out, and I mean properly out. In Paje the water drops back hundreds of metres twice a day and then creeps all the way back in again. I have never seen a tide move like that anywhere in the world, and I have been to forty nine countries!
At high tide Paje is a bright blue lagoon you can swim in. At low tide it is a huge flat expanse of white sand with seaweed farmers working it and kite surfers skimming across the shallows. Both are genuinely beautiful. Only one of them is a swim!
The north coast does not do this. Nungwi sits at the tip of the island where the water is deep enough to swim at any hour, and that single difference is the biggest reason to put a few nights up there.
So here is my actual advice. Look up the tide times for your dates before you book, then plan around them the way you would plan around opening hours. We got this wrong once at Mtende Beach, drove forty five minutes each way, arrived at dead low tide and left without swimming. Beautiful beach, completely wasted trip, and entirely our own fault!
Top tip: on the east coast the whole strip wakes up from about 2:30pm onwards. That is when the wind picks up, the kite surfers go out, the beach bars fill and there is usually a football match happening on the sand.
When Is the Best Time to Visit Zanzibar?
We were there in July, which is dry season, and it was excellent! Warm without being unbearable, around 28 degrees when we landed, and dry enough that we only lost part of one day to cloud. It felt like island weather the second we walked out of the airport, and after a stretch of travelling I could have cried!
I am going to be straight with you though: I have only seen Zanzibar in one season, so I am not going to publish a month-by-month table pretending otherwise. What I can tell you is what July is actually like on the ground.
July sits in the long dry season, and it is also the windy season on the east coast. That wind is exactly why Paje has become one of the best places in the world to learn to kite surf, and it is why the beach gets so lively in the afternoons. If you want glassy, still water for swimming, the wind is a downside. If you want a beach with energy, it is the whole point!
The other thing worth knowing is that July is comfortable rather than scorching. We worked most mornings from cafes, went to the gym almost daily and were not wiped out by the heat, which is not something I could say about Egypt in summer.
How Many Days Do You Need in Zanzibar?
Ten days is my honest minimum if you want both coasts, and seven works perfectly well if you accept that you are only really seeing one of them and stop trying to squeeze the other in.
We had seventeen nights and used them slowly, but we were also working. A normal holiday does not need that long, and I would rather you spent the extra week somewhere else in Tanzania than stretch Zanzibar thin.
This is exactly how I would divide ten days now:
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| Day | Base | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paje | Fly in, taxi across, settle in and eat on the beach |
| 2 | Paje | Beach day, timed around high tide |
| 3 | Paje | Maalum Cave in the morning, cafes in the afternoon |
| 4 | Paje | Scooter or taxi day to Jambiani and The Rock |
| 5 | Paje | Kite surfing lesson or a slow beach day |
| 6 | Stone Town | Prison Island early, then the market and Freddie Mercury's house |
| 7 | Nungwi | Transfer north, swim at any tide for the first time |
| 8 | Nungwi | Mnemba dolphin and snorkel trip, leaving early |
| 9 | Nungwi | Beach, boardwalk and sunset dinner |
| 10 | Nungwi | Last swim, then the airport |
If you only have seven days, cut Nungwi rather than cutting Paje, and accept that you are choosing a tide-dependent beach. If you only have seven days and swimming matters more than atmosphere, do the opposite.
Where Should You Stay in Zanzibar?
Pick the coast first, then the property! Getting this the wrong way round is the most expensive mistake you can make here, because a transfer between Paje and Nungwi is about two hours.
Paje, on the east coast, is where we spent thirteen of our seventeen nights. It is a kitesurfing town with a genuinely good cafe and restaurant scene, a gym we used almost every day for US$5, wifi that held up for a full working morning, and a long shallow lagoon that turns into a completely different landscape twice a day. It suits people who want somewhere to be rather than just somewhere to lie down, and after thirteen nights there I still had places on my list that we never got to!
Nungwi, at the northern tip, is livelier, more built up and has deep swimmable water at any tide. Sunsets there are absolutely ridiculous! It is also where we saw the biggest gap between the resorts and the village three streets behind them.
Stone Town is worth one night if you want to wake up in it, though we visited as a day trip and that worked fine. The market is hectic, the old town genuinely reminded me of Marrakech, and it is where you will find the spice stalls, the Old Fort and Freddie Mercury's family home.
Jambiani sits about twenty minutes south of Paje on the same coast, with the same tide and a fraction of the people. We came down for lunch at Jiwe's Swahili Kitchen, ate a fish curry and a chicken biryani that were 10 out of 10, and then went horse riding along the beach and into the water, which turned out to be my favourite hour of the whole trip!
Chokoro House
Five nights here, with a pool, a quiet garden and a short walk to the beach. The most straightforward place we stayed in Zanzibar.
ENVI Paje
Four nights right on the sand with a private pool facing the water. Sauna, ice baths, a yoga studio and an outdoor jungle gym. The nicest place we stayed on the island.
Siri Beach Lodge
Four nights in the north. Simple, green, a big room with good air conditioning and a mosquito net, which you will want.
If those are booked out, Hostel 197 in Nungwi is rated 4.9 and is far more small hotel than hostel, and The Z Hotel sits right on the Nungwi boardwalk. On the quieter side of the east coast, Be Zanzibar Boutique Hotel in Jambiani is the boutique pick at 4.8 from 390 reviews. My full guide to the best area to stay in Zanzibar compares every coast properly, and every place we slept is listed on our Tanzania stays page.
How Much Does Zanzibar Cost?
Zanzibar is not the bargain some people expect, and it is nowhere near as expensive as the resort photos suggest. Our ground spending came to A$1,387.09 for two people across sixteen tracked days, which is about A$87 a day between us, or A$43 each, on top of accommodation.
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| What | What we paid, July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Maalum Cave entry | US$20 each, 90 minutes |
| Mnemba dolphin and snorkel trip | A$108.66 for two, about A$54 each |
| Jumbo Fitness day pass, Paje | US$5 each |
| Scooter hire | About A$40 for the day |
| Local beer in Nungwi | US$5 |
| Dinner for two, mid-range | Around A$25 to A$40 |
| Coffee | About A$6 |
| Airport taxi to Paje | Fixed price, listed on a board |
Two things that will affect your budget more than any of that. First, accommodation is the whole game here, and it swings from around A$65 a night to several hundred depending on which coast and which end of the market you pick. Second, bring more cash than you think. We pulled money out seven times, and plenty of smaller places, tours and taxis are cash only. Both Tanzanian shillings and US dollars circulate, and prices get quoted in either. I use the Wise card for exactly this kind of trip because it handles two currencies without me thinking about it.
How Do You Get Around Zanzibar?
Taxis, mostly, and it is easier than it sounds.
As soon as you walk out of arrivals there is a taxi desk with every fare listed on a board. Find where you are staying, read the price, and there is nothing to negotiate. Ours took about an hour to Paje.
Now the bit I really want you to read, because it cost us money and could have cost more.
You cannot legally ride a scooter in Zanzibar on your home licence. You need a Zanzibar permit. We hired a scooter for about A$40 for the day and the rental company told us the permit was included. It was not. The office was closed on the Sunday, then the person who issues permits had gone on holiday, then there was apparently a queue. We rode anyway, which was our own bad decision, got pulled over by the police and paid 20,000 shillings, about ten Australian dollars, to make it go away. The guy who rented us the bike stopped replying to messages.
So: hire a scooter if you want the freedom, it is genuinely useful, but do not get on it until the permit actually exists. It is not like renting in Asia, it is not as cheap, and the police do check.
Between the coasts, a Paje to Nungwi transfer is roughly two hours by taxi. That is why I keep saying to pick your base carefully rather than planning to bounce around.
What Should You Book Before You Fly?
Four things, in this order.
1. Accommodation. Especially in July and August. This decides your whole trip, so do it first.
2. Maalum Cave. This was my favourite thing we did on the island and you have to book a slot. They only let fifteen to twenty people in at a time, mornings are much quieter and anything from 11am tends to sell out. We booked the 9:30 slot and had an entire underground swimming pool to ourselves, no one else down there at all, and it is honestly one of the craziest places I have ever swum in my life! Entry is US$20 each for ninety minutes, and they provide rock shoes, lockers and towels. Book direct through Maalum rather than through a tour, because it is cheaper that way.
3. Prison Island and Stone Town. We arranged this privately through the taxi driver who picked us up from the airport, and it came out cheaper than booking a tour. If you would rather have it organised before you land, browse the Prison Island tours here. Go early either way. Prison Island opens at 7:30, we arrived at 8:40 and nearly had it to ourselves, and by the time we left the midday boats were rolling in.
4. A Mnemba trip, if you want to snorkel. More on that below.
Top tip: get an eSIM sorted before you land so you can check tide times and message drivers from the airport. I use the eSIM I use on every trip now and it saves the airport SIM queue.
What I Would Skip in Zanzibar
The starfish at Mtende Beach. There are men on that beach who keep starfish on a rock in one section with a tip box beside them, so that tourists can pick the starfish up and hold them for a photo, and I walked away from it the first time because something about it did not sit right. I went back and asked one of them directly whether the starfish actually live there. He told me, completely openly, that he brings them in from a different beach. Please do not pay for that. Mtende itself is stunning, just go at the right tide and leave the wildlife where it is.
Eating at The Rock. We went, we looked, and we decided not to book. It is a genuinely cool thing to see, a restaurant sitting on a rock in the ocean fifteen minutes from Paje, and we had heard enough about it being a tourist trap that we were happy to admire it from the beach. It opens at midday and you do need to book if you want to eat.
Bouncing between coasts. Two hours each way, and you will lose most of a day doing it.
The overcrowded dolphin boats. I wanted to snorkel at Mnemba but I did not want to be part of a fleet chasing dolphins around. So I asked our guide, before booking, to take us somewhere quieter and early. We left at 6am, got in the water three times, had a bottlenose swim up to my outstretched hand, and then chose to leave rather than keep following them. It was magic, and it was magic partly because there was nobody else there! If you go, look through the Mnemba trips and then talk to your guide about timing. Just keep in mind that Mnemba Island itself is private, so you go around it, not onto it.
Watch Our Zanzibar Vlogs
We split the trip into two videos. The first covers Paje and the whole south east coast, including Maalum Cave, the horse riding and the food. The second heads north to Stone Town, Prison Island, Nungwi and Mnemba, and between them you get the whole island!
Watch part one, Paje and South Zanzibar and part two, Stone Town, Nungwi and Mnemba.
Still planning? Here is where to stay across Paje, Jambiani and Nungwi.
FAQs About Planning a Trip to Zanzibar
How many days do you need in Zanzibar?
Ten days is my minimum for both coasts, giving you around six nights on the east coast and three or four in the north. Seven days works if you commit to one coast and do not try to see everything.
Which is better, Paje or Nungwi?
Nungwi if swimming matters most, because the water is deep enough at any tide. Paje if you want better cafes, a kitesurfing scene and somewhere that feels like a town rather than a strip of resorts. We chose Paje for thirteen of our seventeen nights and I would do that again.
Is Zanzibar expensive?
Not especially. Our ground spending came to about A$87 a day for two people in July 2026, on top of accommodation. Accommodation is where the cost really varies, from around A$65 a night up to whatever you want to spend.
Do you need cash in Zanzibar?
Yes, and more than you expect. We used ATMs seven times in seventeen nights. Plenty of restaurants, tours and taxis are cash only, and both Tanzanian shillings and US dollars are in circulation.
Can you ride a scooter in Zanzibar on a foreign licence?
No. You need a Zanzibar driving permit as well as your licence, and the police do stop people. Make sure your rental company has actually issued the permit before you ride, not just promised it.
Do you need to book Maalum Cave in advance?
Yes. They cap each session at fifteen to twenty people and mornings fill up fast. We booked the 9:30 slot and had the pool to ourselves. Anything from 11am onwards is often full.
Is Zanzibar good for a first trip to Africa?
I think so. It is relaxed, the people are genuinely so lovely, the food is excellent and getting around is straightforward once you know the taxi system! Just go in knowing that the gap between the resorts and everyday life here is very visible, and worth seeing rather than avoiding.
