Zanzibar, Tanzania

🌊 Coastal

Tourism runs this island's economy, full stop. Visitor numbers have exploded from 19,000 in 1985 to roughly 917,000 in 2025, and nearly every economic opportunity for foreigners flows from that wave — resort management, dive instruction, tour operations, freelance photography, or remote work funded elsewhere. The spice trade (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon) still matters locally, as does fishing and algaculture, but those industries employ Zanzibaris, not expats. If you're not bringing income with you or working in hospitality, your options are thin.

A one-bedroom in Stone Town or a beach-adjacent area runs around $500/month, though beachfront properties in Nungwi or Kendwa push significantly higher as tourism development inflates coastal rents. Healthcare is the honest problem: public facilities are underfunded and basic, and anything serious means a medevac to Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. Swahili is the dominant language and English is workable in tourist zones but unreliable elsewhere. Zanzibar's semi-autonomous status creates its own bureaucratic layer — residency permits require navigating both Tanzanian and Zanzibari authorities, which is genuinely slow and inconsistent.

Two dry seasons (June–October, December–February) deliver the postcard weather; the long rains in April–May are real and can strand you. The food scene centers on Swahili coastal cooking — grilled seafood, pilau rice, coconut-based curries — and the Stone Town night market is legitimately good. The expat community is small and transient, heavy on hospitality workers and short-term volunteers rather than settled FIRE types. Weekends mean snorkeling, spice farm tours, or ferry trips to Prison Island. This city suits location-independent earners who want low costs, Indian Ocean access, and can tolerate real infrastructure gaps without complaint.