Most first trips run north then east. Fly into Kilimanjaro, base in Arusha, and give the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater most of your days, with Tarangire or Lake Manyara on the way. Then hop an hour to Zanzibar for Stone Town and the reef. For emptier roads, the southern circuit (Nyerere National Park and Ruaha) is reached from Dar es Salaam. June to October is the reliable dry window. January and February put the calving herds on the southern plains.
2 Tanzania city guides
Fun fact
About 40 percent of Tanzania is terrestrial protected area, one of the highest shares of any country on the World Bank’s conservation index.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe parks are a third of it. Zanzibar and Pemba are a Swahili trading culture with a UNESCO-listed stone town, Kilimanjaro is a week on its own, and the southern highlands around Iringa are green farmland most safari brochures never mention.
The realityThe Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed volcano with its own resident wildlife, Tarangire fills with elephants in the dry months, and Lake Manyara sits under the Rift escarpment on the way in. Booking only the Serengeti means driving past the other three.
The realityIt is a long walk at altitude. There is no rope work on the standard routes, and acclimatisation is what turns people back. The longer routes have the better summit rates, and every guide repeats pole pole, slowly slowly.
The realityArusha and Moshi sit high enough to need a jacket after dark, the crater rim is cold at dawn, and Kilimanjaro keeps ice on its summit. The heat people imagine belongs to the coast and the low-lying parks.
The realityEnglish runs the tourism industry, the signage and most of the business you will do. Swahili is worth learning anyway, for the greetings more than the logistics, because greeting properly is how anything starts here.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Greet before you ask. Habari or hujambo comes first, then the question. Opening with the question reads as brusque, however friendly the tone.
- Say shikamoo to anyone visibly older than you. The reply is marahaba, and the exchange does more for you than any amount of Swahili vocabulary.
- Dress modestly away from the beach, especially in Stone Town and the coastal villages. Shoulders and knees covered is the whole rule.
- Use your right hand for eating, giving and receiving. Ugali is eaten by hand and there is a way to do it, so watch the table before you start.
- Ask before photographing anyone, and expect a photo of a Maasai herder to be a paid transaction. Agree it first and there is no awkwardness after.
- Budget for tips. Safari and Kilimanjaro crews work on them, the amounts are conventional, and a good operator will tell you exactly what is expected.
- Pole pole is advice, not a joke. It applies on the mountain, in a negotiation, and to any timetable you arrived with.
- During Ramadan on Zanzibar, keep eating, drinking and smoking out of the street in daylight. Hotels and resorts carry on as normal.
Famous Tanzanian faces
Julius Nyerere
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Samia Suluhu Hassan
Filbert Bayi
Diamond Platnumz
Hasheem Thabeet
Benjamin Mkapa
Asha-Rose Migiro
Anna Tibaijuka
Ali Kiba
Mbwana Samatta
Rebeca Gyumi
Freddie Mercury
Bi Kidude
Zuchu
Harmonize
Hukwe Zawose
Saida Karoli
Siti binti Saad
Juma Ikangaa
Steven Kanumba
Wema Sepetu
Shaaban Robert
Euphrase Kezilahabi
Edward Saidi Tingatinga
Gado
Must-try Tanzanian food
Nyama choma
Grilled meat, usually goat, ordered by weight and eaten with kachumbari and ugali.
Chipsi mayai
Chips folded into an omelette and cut like a cake. The national late-night dish.
Urojo
Zanzibar mix: a tangy mango and tamarind broth loaded with potato, fritters and crisps.
Ugali
Stiff maize meal, eaten by hand, and the plate almost everything else is served against.
Wali wa nazi
Rice cooked in coconut milk, the coastal default and the right partner for fish.
Pilau
Rice browned with cardamom, cumin and cinnamon, cooked with beef or goat.
Biriani
The coastal celebration rice, layered, with the sauce kept separate.
Mchicha
Amaranth greens stewed down with tomato, onion and often groundnut.
Kisamvu
Pounded cassava leaves simmered slowly with coconut milk or peanut.
Makande
Maize and beans cooked together for hours, the everyday dish of the Kilimanjaro slopes.
Ndizi nyama
Green bananas cooked with beef until they collapse into the sauce. Mtori is the soup.
Mishkaki
Marinated beef or goat threaded onto skewers and grilled over charcoal at the roadside.
Kuku wa kupaka
Chicken grilled first, then finished in a thick coconut sauce with lime and chilli.
Supu ya ndizi
Banana soup, thin and peppery, the standard opener at a northern table.
Samaki wa kupaka
Whole fish charred over coals and painted with coconut curry until it sets.
Pweza wa nazi
Octopus stewed in coconut, tamarind and chilli until it gives up entirely.
Mchuzi wa samaki
Fish curry with tamarind sharpening the coconut, served over coconut rice.
Kaa wa nazi
Crab in coconut sauce, worth the mess and the twenty minutes it takes to eat.
Zanzibar pizza
Thin dough folded around egg, minced meat and cheese, griddled flat at Forodhani.
Sambusa
The samosa, in beef, fish or lentil, sold three for the price of a bus fare.
Chapati
Layered, pan-fried and faintly greasy in the way it should be. Breakfast or a side.
Kachori
Spiced potato balls fried to order, an Indian Ocean inheritance found on every corner.
Mandazi
Lightly sweet fried dough, eaten hot with chai and never far from a bus stand.
Vitumbua
Small coconut rice cakes, crisp at the edge and soft in the middle.
Kashata
Coconut or peanut brittle cut into squares and sold beside the coffee sellers.
Mkate wa kumimina
Zanzibar's poured rice bread, spongy and faintly sweet, served with curry.
Ubuyu
Baobab seeds coated in coloured sugar and chilli, for sucking slowly.
Chai ya tangawizi
Ginger tea boiled with milk, sweet enough to count as a snack.
Kahawa
Tiny cups of black coffee poured from a brass pot on the street, taken with kashata.
Konyagi
The national spirit, distilled from sugarcane and drunk long with tonic and lime.
Dawa
Honey, lime and vodka crushed over ice. The name means medicine, which is the joke.
Sugarcane juice
Pressed at the stall with lime and ginger, and gone before the ice melts.
