Travel to Bazaruto

fabulous beaches and gorgeous islands

The primary highlight of the Bazaruto area is an archipelago of fantastically beautiful tropical islands.

The Bazaruto area has some excellent coral reefs and lagoons for diving and snorkelling.

It is a great area for sailing, often punctuated with picnics on remote beaches. Most lodges are also able to offer a range of watersports such as kayaking and kite-surfing.

It can be fun to combine two or even three of these lodges over the course of 7-10 nights.

Bazaruto is one of the best beach areas in southern Africa and can work well in combination with safari in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Malawi.

The usual stay duration is 4-10 nights, with longer trips typically being split across two lodges in the area.

Seasonality

The Bazaruto area is at its best during the May-Nov dry season, but there are good reasons to visit during other months.

Getting there

Access to this whole Bazaruto area is via the airport at Vilanculos, a good sized town in the midst of these beaches.

The primary flight access is via Johannesburg. If you are coming in from safari in countries other than South Africa, there is a good chance that you will need to overnight at one of the airport hotels on the way through.

Where to stay

The premium location is Benguerra Island, 12km offshore and measuring 7km by 4km. As well as the usual palm-lined beaches, the island also features some interesting dune and forest areas. There are two very high quality and premium-priced lodges here, namely Benguerra Lodge and Azura Benguerra.

Bazaruto Island is similar, but with much larger and very impressive dunefields. It is home to one larger resort, Anantana Bazaruto. which is still rather pleasant and more competitively priced.

The main town on this stretch of coast is Vilanculos, the location of the main airport, with a good range of generally mid and lower cost lodges to the north side.

Around 80 km further north lies the remote and scenic Inhassoro Peninsular, where there is the really well-priced Rio Azul Lodge.

On the mainland coast just to the south of Vilanculos, lies the Linene Peninsular, where much of the low coastal forest, dune-fields, coral lagoons and mangrove forest are designated as a nature reserve. Here we find Dugong Beach Lodge, a decent quality property that is named after the elusive sea-cows found in these waters.

There are more interesting lodge options in the adjacent Inhambane area to the south.

a fantastic range of lodges at all levels