Arriving in Zanzibar feels like you’ve been transported through time and place. This is one of the world’s great cultural crossroads, where Africa meets Arabia meets the Indian Ocean.
In Zanzibar Town, the narrow alleys of historic Stone Town (now a World Heritage Site) meander between ancient buildings decorated with balconies and gigantic carved doors. Meanwhile, on the coast, fishing boats set sail, and in the countryside farmers tend fields of rice or the clove plantations that give Zanzibar its ‘Spice Islands’ moniker.
Beyond these little-changed traditions, visitors see a very different landscape. The idyllic beaches are dotted with hotels, and the ocean becomes a playground for diving, snorkelling and kitesurfing. The main island and surrounding islands are home to some of the finest beaches in East Africa as well as a number of its best dive sites.
Zanzibar offers a huge variety of accommodations and can also be visited as a beach destination on its own. Most people combine a visit to this magical island with a safari in one of the many National Parks of Tanzania, such as the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Selous.
Zanzibar is located in the Indian Ocean, close to the equator. This gives it a tropical monsoon climate. This means that Zanzibar actually only has two seasons: rainy season and a longer, dry season. On the island there are two rainy seasons in which it can rain quite an hour, but the rest of the day will clear up again. Although it doesn’t rain every day during the rainy season, the humidity is a lot higher. The two rainy seasons last from the end of March to June and from the end of October to January. The dry seasons last from January to the end of March and from June to the end of October. The hottest months are therefore February and March, in which the maximum temperature can rise to 33 ° C. A big advantage of a holiday to Zanzibar is that the temperatures are constant throughout the year, between 22 and 30 ° C. A timeline can be seen in the overview below. The greener the box is by the month, the better it is to travel to this country in that period!
