COUNTRY #80!!! Hell yeah.
But now, back to serious business.
Here is the budget breakdown for my trip to Zanzibar, Tanzania.
Below is a photo of the budget breakdown I keep in my Excel spreadsheet:
First, we booked the flight last year in October – yes, almost a year ahead.
The flight was with Ethiopian Airlines and went from Toronto to Addis to Zanzibar. No long layovers, pretty straightforward.
The cost of the flight was $1612.00 CAD per person.
If you can believe it, this flight included two checked bags each!! I definitely did take advantage of that opportunity, souvenir space and whatnot.
Okay there were THREE stays within this one trip. Zanzibar is a large island and I wanted to make sure my mom and I saw as much of it as we could.
The first stay was four nights at an AirBnB in Jambiani – click here for link.
We preferred to begin the trip in a quieter location after the long flight and from the three places, this area looked like the quietest option.
Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, quite spacious and beachfront. Can’t lose.
Four nights here cost $758.50, so $379.25 CAD per person.
The next stay was kind of a last-minute decision.
Initially I had picked a cheaper hotel in the same location (Nungwi) but there was a REALLY nice boutique hotel I has also been keeping an eye on. About 10 days before the trip I saw that this boutique hotel had one last twin room left at a cheaper price and said, fuck it, book it!
The hotel was The Z Hotel Zanzibar – click here for link.
I mean the place is beachfront, breakfast included and it had the best reviews. The photos of it also looked amazing. Yes, even with the cheaper price, this was still like $300 more than my original hotel, but, whatever. Still booked it.
The cost of three nights in the Garden View Twin Ground Room was $1002.00, so $501.00 CAD per person.
The final place to stay was in the busier Stone Town and we chose to stay for two nights at Mizingani Seafront Hotel – click here for link.
We only needed it for one night technically, but since our flight wasn’t until late in the evening I chose to pay for two nights instead. The idea of checking out at 11am, having nowhere to hang out until 5pm and roaming the streets instead? No thank you. Paid for the extra night, enjoyed breakfast and relaxed in bed before flying. Great decision FYI.
Two nights in the Apartment with City View room (breakfast included) cost $395.00, so $197.50 CAD per person.
Fun fact – we went into this trip with only one excursion booked. We really DID want to do a whole bunch of nothing.
Two days into the trip a nice man on the beach told us about an excursion that included seeing dolphins, going to a remote island, having a seafood lunch and also seeing the turtles. We said sure, let’s do it.
This cost $125.00 USD per person, so $173.93 CAD once converted. Clearly I do not have a link for this, sorry.
Now, the excursion we DID book ahead of time was an Exclusive Private Sunset Dhow Sailing Tour in North Zanzibar – click here for link.
I thought this would be a nice, super chill evening as part of my mom’s 70th birthday activities.
This excursion cost $195.74 CAD per person.
Now, for the two MANDATORY items for this trip, let us talk about the visa and the travel insurance.
The visa to enter Tanzania cost $50.00 USD per person, therefore $73.50 CAD once converted.
If you need the link to that, it can be found here. This wasn’t too complicated, however, if they do not get back to you within a week, make sure to email them and ask them about it. My mom’s visa was approved quickly and she was notified, but I never received a notification for mine. After emailing them, it was approved within a day.
Getting a visa-on-arrival is also an option, but do you really want to deal with that after that long flight? Exactly.
The other item is Mandatory Inbound Travel Insurance and the link to that can be found here.
This costs $44.00 USD per person, and that came to $63.72 CAD.
You cannot enter Zanzibar without this, so yeah, doesn’t matter if you have your own from work, your credit card, etc. You can’t enter without it.
This is also something you can get when you arrive at the airport, but trust me, I saw that line… don’t wait. Just do it from home. The approval is immediate and you get an email and have that QR code ready.
The spending money allocated for this trip was $1000.00 USD so about $1386.00 CAD.
This seemed like a pretty good amount, and they do also use Tanzanian Shillings on the island – but MANY things were quoted in USD. Might as well use the currency I know better and already keep at home anyway.
Will let you know if this amount sufficed.
The total budget for this trip is $4582.64 CAD.
Clearly, this trip could have been done for less. There are more affordable stays on the island, just I chose not to necessarily go for those. Oh well.
See you in the recap!
- Mirna