Tanzania Travel Information

Check-in is three hours prior to departure for international flights and one-and-a-half hours for domestic flights.
Many scheduled regional flights may involve multiple stops before reaching the final destination.

Yellow fever vaccination is compulsory and a yellow fever vaccination certificate is required from all travelers over 1 year of age coming from areas with risk of yellow fever transmission (check the internet for details).

Please ensure that inoculations for other tropical diseases, such as cholera, hepatitis, tetanus, and typhoid are up-to-date.

Malaria is endemic but preventable. Use insect repellent, sleep under a mosquito net and take anti-malaria prophylactics as advised by your doctor.

If you suffer from a medical condition, please ensure that you have enough medicine to last during the length of your trip.

Bring prescription medicine; spare glasses/contact lenses and their solution; sunscreen and after-sun moisturizer; a first-aid kit, including plasters, travel sickness tablets, antiseptic cream, antihistamine cream, pain relief tablets, indigestion tablets; as well as a cream for bites/stings and remedy for diarrhea. We remind travelers who have any allergies or an asthma condition, to pack the required medication.

It is imperative to check with your doctor before arrival.

Most dietary requirements can be catered for. Please inform us of any specific dietary requirements and these will be communicated to all properties. Should you require kosher meals, there might incur substantial additional costs as these meals are specially flown in. A two weeks prior notice is required for all dietary requirements.

No formal clothes are required, so we recommend that you keep your luggage to the basics. Traveling light is best as it takes less time to load your vehicle on travel days. Please use soft-side cases instead of hard suitcases.

There is a weight restriction of 15 kg/per person for all domestic flights. Please note that the hand-baggage compartments on the light aircraft’s are only 25 cm.

Bright or dark blue colors attract tsetse flies and black colors attract mosquitoes, so we recommend better khaki or neutral colors.

The local currency is Tanzanian Shilling. Major foreign currencies, especially EURO and USD, are well accepted. They are convertible at Banks or Bureau de Change in the main towns or in any tourist areas. It is not possible to obtain Tanzania Schillings outside the country. Credit Cards are not yet widely accepted and carry a poor exchange rate.

EU and US passport holders are required to purchase a Tourist Entry Visa, which is available at Tanzanian Embassies or at any Border Post. The Tourist Entry Visa costs USD 50 per person for Europeans and USD 100 per person for Americans and is valid for 3 months. Visas obtained at any Border Post are payable in USD cash only. We recommend small dollar notes as officials are not in the position to give change.

Visitors from other countries should check with the Tanzanian Embassy or the nearest Visa Service.

Passports are required by all foreign visitors and must be valid for 6 months after the intended length of stay. Please ensure that you have sufficient blank pages (not endorsement pages) in your passport with at least two consecutive/side-by-side blank pages. If there is not sufficient space in the passport then entry into the country could be denied. Our recommendation is 3 to 4 blank pages.

It is imperative to check visa requirements with the various country embassies/consulates before you travel as visa requirements vary according to your nationality.

In his speech during a budget session in the National Parliament of Tanzania, the Prime Minister His Excellency Kassim Majaliwa announced that the last day to use plastic bags in Tanzania will be 31^st May 2019 and from the 1^st June no one will be allowed to produce, import, sell or use plastic bags. He called on the plastic producing industries in the country to diverse some other technology for carrying bags instead of plastics. He said he has directed the minister for environment and union from the Vice President’s office to include the ban in the existing environmental law and make it a legal ban.

WWF Country Director Dr. Amani Ngusaru has congratulated the government for stepping up the fight against plastic pollution in the country. He said WWF Tanzania is impressed with the Tanzania government’s decision to ban the use of plastic bags and carriers which will be a big bust in the bid to protect the environment and natural resources.

“Plastic is a number one polluter of the environment and a silent killer of our natural environment and resources than most people understand. This is because it takes more than a hundred years for a single plastic bag to decay. We are happy that Tanzania is among the very few African countries to ban the use of plastic bags and we will work hard toward supporting the government in the fight against plastic pollution”.

“We understand that the control of plastic pollution calls for all stakeholders’ participation in raising awareness and making sure that the ban is being effectively observed, we are therefore ready to work with the government to give expert advice whenever needed. Our initiatives will also be directed towards raising awareness to the Tanzania community as we believe an educated man is a wealthy man”. He said.

Tanzania joins about 13 countries in Africa that have either banned or introduced a levy on plastic bags to control and eventually stop their use.  In East Africa, Kenya introduced a complete ban on plastic last August while in Uganda In 2007, a ban on lightweight plastic bags was introduced and came into effect that year. However, the ban was never implemented. Plastics even the countries with bans are still using them illegally.

Plastic which was introduced in Africa a generation ago has been reported to pollute both the seas and land at an alarming rate. According to EcoWatch Plastics affect all biological spectrum, including posing risks to human health and wildlife, the accumulation of these products has led to increasing amounts of environmental pollution around the world including Africa. About 90 percent of all trash floating on the ocean’s surface is believed to be emanating from plastics.

According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), half of all plastic produced is designed to be used just once and then discarded, resulting in mass amounts of chemically-laden debris landing in oceans and littering landscapes.

Credit: WWF

When packing for your Tanzania safari, light casual clothing is practical, neutral colors and a warm jacket for evening game drives are a safe bet throughout the year. For more on what to pack for a safari, refer to our Africa Safari Guide.

When visiting Zanzibar, it’s important for women to dress modestly in main towns out of respect for Muslim cultural beliefs. T-shirts that cover the shoulders, long skirts, and Capri pants are generally better options than tank tops and shorts. Beachwear and bathing costumes are acceptable on the beaches and in resorts.

History and Economy

In many ways, Tanzanian history is the history of humankind. Fossils found at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world’s premier archaeological sites, suggest that Tanzania has been settled by hominids for over 2 million years. Iron Age migrations from West Africa were followed by European and Arabian merchants, missionaries, and slavers, and by the mid-1800s Zanzibar had become the center of the East African slave trade. Colonized first by the Germans and then the British, independence came peacefully to mainland Tanganyika in 1961. The addition of Zanzibar in 1964 created the modern state of Tanzania.

Rich in mineral wealth and natural gas, Tanzania’s economy is nevertheless dominated by agriculture, which employs 75% of the workforce and accounts for half the country’s GDP. Tanzania’s main exports include gold, coffee, tea, and cotton. But it’s tourism, increasing in importance year after year, that is the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner.

People and Culture

Some of Tanzania’s 120 ethnic groups make up the African population, with a significant number of Asians, Arabs, and Europeans too. Even with this mix of identities, Tanzania has long promoted a harmonious national culture, one that is based on a subtle but strong social code of courtesy and respect. English and Swahili are the official languages.

Landscape and Wildlife

Lying between the two arms of the Great Rift Valley, Tanzania’s huge central plateau is bounded on the west by Africa’s great lakes, the north by mountains (including Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak), and the Indian Ocean in the east. Most of the country is covered in grassland, open woodland, and Savannah, but significant pockets of rainforest exist in remote mountain ranges.

Home to 20% of Africa’s large mammals, Tanzania is one of the continent’s premier game viewing destinations. More than 25% of the country is given over to conservation and several Tanzania animal reserves rank among the biggest in the world. Most visitors head to northern Tanzania, where the most famous and accessible animal reserves are. But it’s in the south and central Tanzania where you’ll find huge, virtually unvisited Savannah and rainforest reserves that deliver genuine off-the-beaten-track safaris