Zanzibar When To Go | When Is The Best Time To Go To Zanzibar Islands
When going on holiday to Tanzania the chances are the aim of the trip is to either go for a safari, or to the beach or both. As a general rule of thumb, the best time to be in Tanzania at the beach is in the dry season from July – October when the weather is dry and sunny. This is the only time of year which is pretty much guaranteed not to rain. There are short rains in November (which sometimes trickle through into December, January and March) before the long rains which come in April and May.
Zanzibar has a fabulous climate to meet all your Indian Ocean beach holiday dreams. It is an average of 30 year round – the catch is, you want to go when there is minimal chance of rain. We don’t think the beach is much fun when it is raining, especially if you are coming from a less than tropical climate like the UK! For the absolute minimum chance of rain, it really has to be the dry season from mid June – mid October.
Interestingly though, the other islands like Pemba have their own little micro climate… Although it is generally more or less 30 degrees across the board, the rainy seasons are rather less defined than on the beaches of Zanzibar. April and May should still e avoided, however in the “dry” season, where Zanzibar may have around 8 days of rain per month from July – September, Pemba Island has around 12. This is constant from July – December, with January and February seeing significantly less rainy. Out of the non-rainy season months, it seems that the rainfall is also the least in January and February – around half of rain falling in the “dry” season… So this could be a good time to go if you are looking at the surrounding islands for other activities and not solely Zanzibar’s beaches.
