Tanzania Travel Guide: Self-Guided City Walks

The best things to do in Tanzania range from exploring historic Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean coast to discovering high mountains, great lakes, forests and protected wildlife areas. Tanzania is a country shaped by the union of Tanganyika and the Zanzibar Archipelago, with a history and culture as varied as its landscapes. Neywo has a free audio guide for Tanzania, covering 1 city, 8 narrated places and 1 walking tour, with narration available in 11 languages.

What to see and do in Tanzania

Discover the history of Tanganyika and Zanzibar

Tanzania takes its name from the union of two former states: Tanganyika on the mainland and the Zanzibar Archipelago. They came together in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania, and the country’s name was created from the names of both.

The story of the region begins much earlier. Tanzania has yielded important hominid fossils, while migrations brought Southern and Eastern Cushitic peoples, Southern Nilotes and Southern Bantu communities into different parts of the country. Bantu-speaking communities established farming and trading villages along the coast from the beginning of the first millennium.

Zanzibar later became the capital of Omani Sultan Said bin Sultan and an important centre of the East African slave trade. On the mainland, German rule began in the late nineteenth century, followed by British administration after the First World War, when the territory was governed as Tanganyika.

Experience the Indian Ocean coast and Zanzibar

The eastern edge of Tanzania meets the Indian Ocean, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The coast is hot and humid, while the islands reflect the long history of trade and cultural exchange that shaped the region.

Arabic is widely spoken in Zanzibar, a reminder of the islands’ history as a trading centre dominated by Arabs. Swahili is the national language of Tanzania, and coastal communities have helped make it one of the country’s most important cultural threads.

See Mount Kilimanjaro and Tanzania’s highlands

In north-eastern Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro rises above the surrounding landscape. It is Africa’s highest mountain and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world.

The country’s geography changes considerably with altitude. While the coast is warm and humid, high mountain regions can be cool. This contrast is one of the defining features of Tanzania, where the Indian Ocean, inland highlands and major mountain landscapes exist within the same country.

Explore the African Great Lakes

Water is central to Tanzania’s geography. Parts of three African Great Lakes lie within the country:

• Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake
• Lake Tanganyika, the continent’s deepest lake, known for its unique fish species
• Lake Malawi, which lies to the south

Together, these lakes reveal the scale and variety of Tanzania’s inland landscapes. They also form part of the country’s wider setting of mountain, lake, coast and forest.

Visit national parks and protected areas

Tanzania has an extensive network of national parks, game reserves, forest reserves, conservation areas and marine parks. These protected spaces support a remarkable range of habitats and wildlife.

The country’s natural environment is not limited to a single type of safari landscape. It includes forests, mountain areas, inland waters, coastal ecosystems and protected seas. The Menai Bay Conservation Area, in Zanzibar, is the archipelago’s largest marine protected area.

Follow Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee research in Gombe

In western Tanzania, Gombe Stream National Park became the site of Jane Goodall’s research into chimpanzee behaviour. The park represents another side of Tanzania’s natural heritage: forest environments and the study of primates, alongside the country’s better-known mountain, lake and coastal landscapes.

See Kalambo Falls

At the border with Zambia, the Kalambo River drops over Kalambo Falls. It is Africa’s second-highest uninterrupted waterfall and one of the country’s striking examples of how water shapes the landscape.

Visit Arusha

For travellers looking for the Arusha audio guide, Neywo covers 8 narrated places in the city. Among them are St. Theresa’s Metropolitan Cathedral, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Arusha Declaration Museum.

Arusha also provides a way to encounter Tanzania’s urban history and public life alongside the country’s natural attractions. Its narrated places bring individual sites into focus rather than treating the city as a backdrop.

Listen to Tanzania’s many voices

More than 100 languages are spoken in Tanzania. They come from Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic and Khoisan language families. Swahili is the national language, while English is used in foreign trade, diplomacy, higher courts, and secondary and higher education.

Tanzania’s cultural traditions are strongly connected to the spoken word. Folktales, poems, riddles, proverbs and songs form an important oral literary tradition, with much recorded oral literature in Swahili. Other languages have their own oral traditions as well.

Music varies according to place, people and occasion. Recognised genres include ngoma, dansi, kwaya, taarab and bongo flava. Visual art offers another form of expression: the Tingatinga school of painting, founded by Edward Said Tingatinga, is known for bright enamel paintings on canvas, often showing people, animals and everyday life.

Explore Tanzania with Neywo

Download Neywo to explore Tanzania with 1 walking tour through 1 city, including 8 narrated stops. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.