--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Tanzania (City Guides) Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Tanzania, mapped and filmed. Where to go from the northern safari circuit to Zanzibar, when to travel, how to get around, and what to eat." url: https://wimup.com/country/tanzania type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Tanzania **The northern safari circuit**, the highest mountain in Africa, and an Indian Ocean archipelago that has been trading with Arabia for a thousand years. Tanzania holds **three separate holidays** inside one border. ## Quick answer 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. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Jun–Oct · Jan–Feb - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $120–300 - **Language:** Swahili, with English widely used - **Getting around:** Domestic flights & long-distance buses - **2** City guides - **61,741,120** People - **1** Video guide - **31** Regions Most Tanzania itineraries are built in two halves. The north carries the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater and Kilimanjaro, reached through Arusha; Zanzibar closes the trip with reef and a UNESCO-listed old town, a short hop from Dar es Salaam. The two connect by domestic flight in about an hour, which is why the safari-then-beach pairing became the standard route. ## 2 Tanzania city guides 1. [Zanzibar](https://wimup.com/city/zanzibar.md): Africa · 10 picks 2. [Arusha](https://wimup.com/city/arusha.md): Africa · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 61,741,120 - **Area:** 945,087 km² - **Density:** 65.3 / km² - **Capital:** Dodoma - **Major cities:** Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Dodoma, Arusha, Zanzibar City - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Tanzanian shilling (TZS) Shillings for daily spending, and mobile money for almost everything: M-Pesa and Airtel Money. Safari, diving and lodge rates come in US dollars, and cards work in hotels and larger restaurants. - **Language:** Swahili, English Swahili is the national language, binding more than a hundred mother tongues. English carries business and tourism, so you will be met in it. Learning the greetings is how a conversation opens. - **Calling code:** +255 - **Power:** 230V · Type D/G - **Emergency:** 112 112 reaches emergency services and 114 the ambulance, but coverage thins outside the towns. On safari or the mountain, call your operator, and make sure your insurance covers evacuation. - **Visa:** eVisa, apply before you fly Visas on arrival ended in January 2025: apply online before travel on the immigration department's own portal. One visa covers the mainland and Zanzibar. Processing takes time, so apply early. - **Health:** Yellow fever certificate, conditionally Yellow fever proof is required only if you arrive from or via a risk country, not straight from Europe or North America. Malaria is present countrywide below the highest ground. Check official advice. - **Getting around:** Domestic flights Light aircraft link the far-flung circuits through Arusha, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. A standard gauge railway has run Dar to Dodoma since July 2024, coaches do the rest, and ferries reach Zanzibar. - **Driving:** On the left Left-hand traffic, and most visitors never drive: park routes and the distances between them make a guide with a vehicle the normal arrangement. - **Tipping:** Expected in tourism Budget for it. Safari guides, cooks and Kilimanjaro crews are tipped as a matter of course, usually pooled at the end, and good operators will tell you the going rate. - **Dress:** Modest on the coast Zanzibar and the coast are mostly Muslim. Cover shoulders and knees in Stone Town and the villages, keep swimwear to beach and hotel, and in Ramadan avoid eating or drinking in the street by day. - **Time zone:** EAT (UTC+3) No daylight saving, and close to the equator, so sunrise and sunset barely move across the year. Both land near six o'clock, so game drives start early and end abruptly. ## When to visit - **Jan** (best) - **Feb** (best) - **Mar** - **Apr** - **May** - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** (good) - **Dec** (good) ## 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 - **Myth:** Tanzania is one long safari **Reality:** The 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. - **Myth:** The Serengeti is the north **Reality:** The 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. - **Myth:** Kilimanjaro is a technical climb **Reality:** It 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. - **Myth:** It is hot everywhere, all year **Reality:** Arusha 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. - **Myth:** You will not manage without Swahili **Reality:** English 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. - 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**: First president, Mwalimu, the teacher, and architect of the union that made Tanzania - **Abdulrazak Gurnah**: Zanzibar-born Nobel laureate in Literature (2021), writing on colonialism and exile - **Freddie Mercury**: Born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar in 1946, later the voice of Queen - **Samia Suluhu Hassan**: Sworn in during 2021 as the first woman president, and the first born in Zanzibar - **Bi Kidude**: Zanzibari taarab singer who performed into her nineties, vague about her age - **Filbert Bayi**: Ran the 1500m world record from the front at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch - **Diamond Platnumz**: Bongo flava's biggest export and the first sub-Saharan artist past a billion YouTube views - **Hasheem Thabeet**: The first Tanzanian in the NBA, taken second overall in the 2009 draft - **Benjamin Mkapa**: President through the reform decade from 1995, later a regional peace mediator - **Asha-Rose Migiro**: UN Deputy Secretary-General from 2007, and Tanzania's first woman foreign minister - **Anna Tibaijuka**: Economist who ran UN-HABITAT as an Under-Secretary-General for a decade - **Ali Kiba**: The other pole of bongo flava, with a following that runs the length of East Africa - **Zuchu**: Singer who became the first woman in East Africa to a million YouTube subscribers - **Harmonize**: Left the label that made him to build Konde Music Worldwide in Dar es Salaam - **Hukwe Zawose**: Wagogo singer and ilimba player who took central Tanzanian music onto world stages - **Saida Karoli**: Haya-language singer from the northwest whose songs travelled far past the region - **Siti binti Saad**: The Zanzibari singer who moved taarab out of the sultan's court and into Swahili - **Juma Ikangaa**: Won the 1989 New York City Marathon in a course record, after three Boston seconds - **Mbwana Samatta**: The first Tanzanian to play and score in the Premier League, for Aston Villa - **Steven Kanumba**: The actor who made Bongo Movie a national industry before his death in 2012 - **Wema Sepetu**: Former Miss Tanzania turned one of the most recognisable faces in Swahili film - **Shaaban Robert**: Poet and essayist widely called the father of Swahili literature - **Euphrase Kezilahabi**: Novelist and poet who broke Swahili verse out of its classical metre - **Edward Saidi Tingatinga**: Painted the bicycle-enamel style that carries his name and is now a Dar es Salaam school - **Gado**: Godfrey Mwampembwa, the Dar es Salaam-born cartoonist read across East Africa - **Rebeca Gyumi**: Lawyer whose 2016 case raised the marriage age to 18. UN Human Rights Prize laureate ## Must-try Tanzanian food - **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. - **Nyama choma**: Grilled meat, usually goat, ordered by weight and eaten with kachumbari and ugali. - **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. - **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. - **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. ## Films - [Stone Town on Foot](https://wimup.com/watch/zanzibar.md), 1:29:40 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Tanzania? Ten to fourteen days is the honest minimum for the standard trip. Give the northern parks six or seven nights, because a day of it is spent driving between them, then four or five on Zanzibar. Add Kilimanjaro and you are adding a week on its own, not a side trip. ### When is the best time to go on safari in Tanzania? June to October is the dry season, when the grass is short, the animals gather at water and the roads behave. July and August bring the Mara River crossings and the biggest crowds with them. January and February are the other answer: the herds are calving on the southern Serengeti plains and the predator action is at its most concentrated. ### Do you need a visa for Tanzania? Most visitors do, and since the end of January 2025 it has to be arranged online before travel; the airport no longer issues it. One visa covers both the mainland and Zanzibar. Apply through the immigration department's own portal and leave time for processing. ### Is Tanzania expensive? The safari is, and there is no way around it: park fees, a vehicle and a guide are the cost of the thing itself. Everything else is cheap by comparison. Zanzibar runs from backpacker guesthouse to private island, buses cost little, and street food is a couple of dollars a meal. ### Can you combine a safari with Zanzibar? It is the standard route. Light aircraft link Arusha and the northern parks to Zanzibar in about an hour, so most itineraries end on the coast. Fly that leg, and give the island at least four nights so it is a rest and not a connection. ## Related countries - [Algeria](https://wimup.com/country/algeria.md) - [Egypt](https://wimup.com/country/egypt.md) - [All of Africa](https://wimup.com/africa) Part of [Africa](https://wimup.com/africa.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.tanzaniatourism.go.tz/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://visa.immigration.go.tz/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Health](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/tanzania?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.