Getting Around Zanzibar: Transfers, Taxis & Travel Times

From the airport to your hotel

Plan on about 1 hour 15 minutes from Zanzibar International Airport (ZNZ) to the southeast coast by private car — and treat any promise of 45 minutes with suspicion, because the road simply does not allow it. The hotel arranges a private driver who meets you at arrivals, so there is nothing to organise on landing.

If you are heading to Stone Town instead, the airport is only 15–20 minutes away, which is why a Stone Town visit pairs so neatly with an arrival or departure day. Our guide to day trips from the east coast covers what to see once you are out and about.

How far apart things are

Distances on Zanzibar are best measured in hours, not kilometres. Michamvi Pingwe sits on the southeast tip; from there it is roughly 75–90 minutes to Stone Town in the centre-west, and about 2 hours up to the north coast around Nungwi and Kendwa.

Those northern beaches are the island’s main party-and-snorkelling strip — worth a day trip if you want to see them, but a different feeling from the quiet east coast. For most journeys you will be in the car for one to two hours, so it pays to group sights into full days rather than darting back and forth across the island.

It also means there is no need to change hotels mid-trip to see Zanzibar. From one quiet base on the east coast, Stone Town, the north and the south coast are all reachable as day trips, and most guests prefer to settle in one place and travel out from it rather than packing and re-packing every couple of nights.

Getting around day to day: private drivers and taxis

For day trips and excursions, the simplest option is a private driver arranged by the hotel — you set the pace, and the timings are yours rather than a tour bus’s. Local taxis are also available and fine for shorter hops along the coast; agree the fare before you set off, as meters are not used here.

Public minibuses, the dala-dala, do run across the island and are very cheap, but they are slow, crowded and not how most visitors get around. If your time on the island is limited, a private car is the better value by far.

Reaching the mainland: domestic flights

Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, and the mainland is a short flight rather than a long haul. From ZNZ you fly to Arusha (ARK) or Kilimanjaro (JRO) in about an hour — the usual hubs for a Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater or Tarangire safari.

Because the hop is so short, a great many guests combine the two into one trip: bush and beach without losing days to travel. The hotel coordinates the timing so your safari flight and your transfer line up.

Planning a Zanzibar and safari trip

The classic combination is seven nights on the coast at Matlai plus three to five nights on safari, and it works in either direction. Some guests fly in, go straight to the mainland, then come to the beach to recover; others do the reverse and finish on safari.

Either way the connection is a one-hour flight, so neither half eats into the other. If you are weighing the order, we usually suggest finishing on the coast — it is the gentler way to end a trip before a long flight home.

One piece of practical advice: build in a buffer day at the end, on the coast. Flights from the safari strips run on small aircraft and can shift with the schedules and the weather, and you do not want a delay on the mainland eating into your international departure.

How the hotel arranges your transfers

Rather than leaving you to find transport, the hotel books everything in advance through trusted local operators. Our regular driver works with Semeni Tours and Safaris, run by Seif Haroub, who has handled Matlai’s airport transfers and day trips for years; for larger groups, the established agency Zantours is an option.

The practical upshot: you step off the plane to a named driver holding a sign, and every onward trip — Stone Town, the north coast, or the airport for your safari flight — is arranged before you arrive. For the full picture of what is worth the drive, see our guide to Stone Town.