Zanzibar North

Zanzibar's tide does something that surprises first-time visitors: on the east and south coasts the water can retreat far enough that the sea is a distant line and the beach in front of your hotel becomes a wet plain of sand, seagrass and starfish for several hours. It comes back, and the flats are their own kind of beautiful, but swimming is intermittent and scheduled by the moon. The northern tip is built differently. The shelf drops off close to shore at Nungwi and Kendwa, so the water stays deep enough to swim in at any state of the tide, and Kendwa in particular has the most consistently swimmable sand on the island. Everything else about this coast follows from that — the concentration of hotels, the dive boats, the bar strip, the sheer number of people. It also faces west, which gives it the island's only true beach sunset over open ocean, and that has become an event in itself: boats out, music on, a crowd on the sand every evening. If you want to swim whenever you feel like it and be among people while doing it, come here. If either half of that sentence puts you off, the southern and eastern coasts are the other answer.

Behind the resort strip, Nungwi remains a fishing village, and it is one of the last places on the Swahili coast where large ocean-going dhows are still built by hand on the sand — no plans, no power tools to speak of, hulls shaped by eye and skill passed down through families. Walking along the beach past a half-built hull with a group of men working it is one of the more genuinely memorable things on the island and costs nothing. The village also supports the fish market, the boatyards and a daily rhythm entirely separate from the hotels a few hundred metres away. The sea turtle sanctuary at the point is a natural tidal pool where rescued and hatchery-raised green turtles are kept and released; it charges entry, it is a real conservation operation rather than a photo stop, and the release programmes are worth timing a visit around if you can. What makes the north interesting rather than merely busy is exactly this proximity — a working village, a boatyard and a beach bar within a few minutes of each other, largely ignoring one another.

The best diving and snorkelling on Zanzibar sits off the north-east, around the small private island of Mnemba and the atoll reef surrounding it. The reef holds good hard and soft coral, turtles are common, and dolphins are frequently encountered on the boat ride out; the diving is generally gentle, with shallow reef suited to beginners and open-water sites for the qualified. Trips run daily from Nungwi and Kendwa as half-days, and it is worth choosing an operator on group size and briefing quality rather than on price, since the popular sites can get crowded with boats and the difference between a good and an indifferent trip is largely how many people are in the water at once. Note that the island itself is private and cannot be landed on — the atoll is what you are visiting. Beyond Mnemba, the north has reef diving of its own, and the calmer months from roughly June to October and December to February give the best visibility. Anyone planning to dive should check that their travel insurance actually covers it, which the health and safety guide explains is a common gap.

Nungwi is about an hour and a half by road from Stone Town and the airport, on a good road, and transfers are straightforward to arrange. Most visitors put the north at the end of a trip — after the mainland safari, after Stone Town — which is the right order, and the trip-planning guide makes the general case for why the beach comes last rather than first. Two or three nights is the standard stay; a week suits people who genuinely want to do nothing, and the north supports that better than the quieter coasts because there is somewhere to eat and drink within walking distance. On conduct: the beaches themselves are relaxed and ordinary swimwear is unremarkable, but Zanzibar is overwhelmingly Muslim and the moment you walk into the village you are in a residential area — shoulders and knees covered off the sand is expected, and it matters more here than at an isolated resort precisely because the village and the strip sit on top of each other. Alcohol is served throughout the tourist areas and not elsewhere.