Zanzibar

The moment the aircraft door opens over Zanzibar, the air changes — warm, salt-laden, carrying the faintest trace of cloves and cinnamon. The island has been drawing the world to its shores for over a thousand years, and the layers of every civilisation that ever arrived here are still present: in the carved wooden doors of Stone Town, in the call to prayer that drifts over coral-stone rooftops at dusk, in the flavours of a Zanzibari pilau that blends spices from three continents.

Beyond Stone Town, the island reveals a different kind of beauty. The east and north coasts open onto beaches of powdered white sand and water that shifts from turquoise to deep cobalt as the reef falls away. Beneath the surface, the Indian Ocean is extraordinary — visibility of 20 to 30 metres, walls of coral teeming with lionfish, moray eels, and clouds of parrotfish, and the seasonal presence of whale sharks and manta rays that make Zanzibar one of the finest dive destinations in the world.

Zanzibar rewards those who go slowly. Spend a morning lost in Stone Town's labyrinthine alleyways, then an afternoon on a spice farm. Watch the sun drop into the ocean from a dhow as the sky turns amber and rose. Eat grilled lobster at the night food market on the waterfront. The island insists on pleasure — and it always delivers.

At a Glance

Zanzibar