General: Tanzania > Reviews > Wildlife and beaches

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Value for Money
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around
Family Friendly

Advantages:	Great for animal lovers and safer than solo travel .
Disadvantages:	Expensive for what you get .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I chose to take a Kumuka tour through Tanzania and Zanzibar before settling down to work in Kenya. We set off from Nairobi on a 2-week trip that cost me about £500 excluding airfare. In retrospect this seems like a lot of money for what I got, but as a single female making the trip alone didn’t seem like much of an option.

We travelled in a big truck, which was reasonably comfortable, but we did have to spend a long time in it and we did a lot of bouncing from side to side. It also got very cold! I took a fleece and my friends said I was mad, but I got a lot of use out of it.

On the practical side, our accommodation was in tents until we got to Zanzibar when we had 2 nights in a hostel and 2 in huts on the beach. The camping was okay, but after a long day the grind of putting up and taking down tents was not much fun. Also if you travel alone you will be expected to share a tent with a stranger. We all had duties on the truck, such as cleaning, washing up or cooking. The food was good and filling and they can cater for special diets. Our three guides were great, especially our main tour guide who was a really funny guy.

We first visited the Serengeti National Park. This was great for a while but I’m not a huge animal fan and after a while another animal wasn’t such a big event. We did see an impressive range of wildlife, though. I would like to do safari when I’m older and richer. The idea of doing it from a balloon appeals and there was an option to do that on this trip but it was more expensive and therefore not an option. However, I will never forget coming out of the loos with my torch late at night and shining it into the face of a Hyena that was watching me. I scarpered.

The scenery was breathtaking. The Ngorongoro Crater was spectacular. But here again I felt that I wanted to do something other than look at more animals. I think I was a minority, however, the people with the best cameras seemed to have a fantastic time. It was an animal lovers paradise. All in all the safari was pretty good and I’m glad I did it. There were some fantastic people on the trip, which made it for me. Sitting round the campfire at night was my favourite bit.

Zanzibar was more my style. Stonetown is a wonderful place full of interesting buildings and smells. The place doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether it is Indian, African, Arabic or just colonial. I loved the fact that all the doors have elephant studs despite the fact there are no elephants on the island and have never been! The night market was the best place to get food. It’s really cheap and, as you would expect, the seafood is wonderful. We went on slave trade tours and a spice tour, both of which were interesting for different reasons. I would recommend the spice tour as you get to try all the different types of fruit and spices and at the end they take you to a house and give you a great tasting lunch.

After Stonetown we spent a couple of days at the northern beaches. It’s a really beautiful place to relax and unwind, the only sour note was a snorkelling expedition with more jellyfish than anything else. All in all, though, Zanzibar was the best part of the trip by far and definitely somewhere I would recommend.

Also, be warned, this is where I contracted Malaria Falciparum, the most dangerous type. I was taking doxycycline in order to prevent this happening but they are only 70% effective so you must take care to prevent the mozzies biting. 100% deet is a must have.