Prison Island, Nakupenda and Stone Town Tour with Lunch

Prison Island (Changuu) and its giant tortoises

The day starts on the water. From the beach by the Old Fort the boat crosses to Prison Island in about twenty to thirty minutes. Known locally as Changuu, the island got its name from the prison built in 1893, which never held prisoners and became a quarantine station for yellow fever instead; the arched buildings still stand among the trees. The Aldabra giant tortoises arrived as a gift from the Seychelles in 1919 and their descendants now roam a sanctuary where you can walk among them, feed them leaves and photograph animals that are more than a hundred years old.

A Prison Island tour from Stone Town is usually the first thing families book in Zanzibar, and the tortoises rarely disappoint. There is also a small beach and a shallow reef for snorkelling. Expect to spend about an hour on the island, with masks and fins ready on the boat for anyone who wants to get in the water.

Nakupenda sandbank, swimming and lunch on white sand

From Prison Island the boat continues for about twenty minutes to Nakupenda, whose name means "I love you" in Swahili. It is a sandbank with no buildings, no trees and water in every direction: shallow and turquoise on the lagoon side, deeper blue beyond the edge. At low tide you can walk a good distance along it, and as the tide rises the sand slowly narrows. Umbrellas go up, the charcoal is lit and you have the sea to yourselves.

Lunch here is a seafood barbecue with rice, salad, tropical fruits and soft drinks, cooked on the sand by the crew; grilled chicken or a vegetarian plate can be arranged if you tell us in advance. Together with swimming and snorkelling, the sandbank takes about two hours and is the point in the day when everyone slows down before the boat returns to the city for the Stone Town part of the tour.

Stone Town, the UNESCO-listed old city

Back on the waterfront in the afternoon, your guide leads you into Stone Town, inscribed by UNESCO in 2000 as an outstanding example of a Swahili trading town shaped by African, Arab, Persian, Indian and European influences. The walk begins at the Old Fort, built by Omani Arabs in the seventeenth century on the site of a Portuguese church, and passes the former sultan's palace and the House of Wonders, the seafront ceremonial palace that was among the first buildings in East Africa with electricity and a lift.

Then the alleys take over: coral-stone houses with carved wooden doors studded with brass, balconies leaning towards each other, small mosques and Hindu temples a few steps apart. Your guide explains the door carvings, the history of the spice and slave trades and daily life in the old city. The Stone Town tour lasts about two hours at an easy pace, with time for photos.

Darajani market and the heart of local life

No Stone Town tour is complete without Darajani, the city's main market, where the island's produce arrives every morning: pyramids of mangoes and bananas, baskets of cloves and cinnamon, fresh fish laid out on marble slabs and spice sellers calling out to customers. It is noisy, colourful and entirely local, and your guide walks you through the sections that are most interesting for visitors while explaining what you see.

Nearby stand the Anglican cathedral and the site of the former slave market, one of the most moving places in Zanzibar, where the guide explains the island's role in the East African trade and its abolition. This mix of market, memory and daily bustle is what makes people say Stone Town is worth visiting even for a single afternoon.

Forodhani Gardens and the seafront

The tour ends where it began, at Forodhani Gardens on the seafront between the Old Fort and the House of Wonders. In the late afternoon the gardens fill with families, and from here you look out over the harbour to the dhows and, on a clear day, to Prison Island on the horizon where your morning started. It is the best place in Stone Town for sunset and the most popular meeting point in the city.

If you are booked with hotel pickup, our driver meets you here to take you back to your hotel; from the north or east coast the drive is about an hour and a quarter. Guests on the meeting-point options simply walk back to their Stone Town hotels. How to get to Stone Town from the beach resorts is a question we hear every day, and this tour answers it with transport included both ways.