Planning a trip to Zanzibar

What is compulsory, and what it costs

Four things you cannot avoid, per person, before a single night is booked. Two of them are recent enough that most guides to this island still leave them out.

A couple on British passports is $188 down before flights or a hotel. An American couple is $288 down. The whole week is costed in the budget page.

What to do, and when

The order that avoids every avoidable problem, working backwards from the flight.

• Three to four months out, book the flight. Fares here climb steadily rather than dropping late, because the aircraft are small. See flights to Zanzibar.
• Three months out, pick the coast. This is the decision the whole trip turns on, and it is about the tide rather than the sand. How far apart everything is settles the rest. See north versus east.
• Four weeks out, apply for the visa. Ten working days is the quoted processing time and it is a target, not a promise.
• Two weeks out, buy the ZIC insurance. A separate site and a separate payment from the visa. Print both.
• One week out, see a travel clinic. Malaria prophylaxis and any vaccinations. Yellow fever only matters if you connect through certain countries.
• Two days out, book two things. The sunset dhow and The Rock. Nothing else on the island needs booking ahead.

How many days you need

Seven works and is what most people take. Five on a beach and two spent doing things is the shape it settles into, and it keeps the driving manageable.

Ten days is the version worth planning if you have it, because it lets you split between two coasts rather than seeing one. Three or four nights east, then the rest north, is the order that works.

Fourteen days if you are adding a mainland safari, which takes four to six of them. Safari first, beach second, and that order is not negotiable if you want to enjoy either half.

Under five days is a long way to come for a short stay, and the ninety minute transfer to the north eats two half days of it.

A week that works

Day one, land and sleep in Stone Town. It is twenty minutes from the airport rather than ninety, and it removes a long drive at the end of a long flight.

Day two, the town on foot: the former slave market first, then the doors, the market, and Forodhani at dusk.

Day three, transfer to the coast with a stop at Jozani forest or a spice tour on the way. Both sit on the road.

Days four to seven, the beach, with one boat day in the middle. Safari Blue if you want a full day out, Mnemba if you want the water. Book the sunset dhow for the last evening.

What to sort before you fly

The visa and the compulsory island insurance, which are two separate things and both checked at immigration.

US dollar notes printed in 2013 or later, in good condition. Tanzania refuses older bills and a lot of visitors find that out at the exchange desk.

A data plan that works on landing, and the airport transfer if you are arriving at night or heading north.

And the one thing nobody tells you: check what the tide does at the beach you booked. It decides half of every day on most of this coastline.