6 Best Hotels in Mafia Island, Tanzania

If you are in Mafia to dive but also are watching the wallet then Big Blue is a great option, with a selection of affordable tents and bungalows. Coupled with a dive package, this is your best option for saving money but still enjoying the diving. Tents are cozy and simple, under a thatch shading with single or twin beds, a fan, and power socket. The more structured reed wall bungalows come with wooden beds, mosquito nets, en suite bathroom, and an air-conditioner. There is a pleasant social area with a restaurant and bar area that faces a small garden. The beach has a few sunshades and locally made loungers.

Butiama Group runs three types of properties across Mafia Island including Bustani, an intimate 10-room lodge on a hillside with a large pool and gardens outside of the marine park. There's also Beach Lodge with 13 well-appointed, colorful bungalows that have wide outdoor verandahs equipped with loungers and inviting hammocks outside of the park, and Marine Camp, which has a few basic bungalows and tents under makuti thatch shading for the budget traveler. It may not have the overly romantic aesthetic of other resorts, but at low tide it has one of the best, most extensive beaches on the island, perfect for sunny strolls.

Climbing up the winding steps rotating around the trunk of a baobab tree, the tree houses of Chole Mjini will satisfy anyone with an island castaway fantasy. The lodge is as unique as the people who visit it, with open-air tree houses set among the overgrown ruins of an ancient trading station and open-air showers built around local vegetation with a unique kerosene-heating method to get the shower going. Coffee arrives every morning on a pulley system in your own baobab tree house. Dinner service is rotated between the lodge and inside the ruins, which are decorated by the roots of strangler fig trees. Head to the Red Herring Bar to watch the sunset (and get Wi-Fi). For rooms with the best views, choose Sita, Tano, and Nne.

Nestled on a hillside between an old cashew nut and coconut plantation, Kinasi has beautiful views over the mangroves towards the bay on Mafia Island. It may be one of the larger resorts, but because it is spread out over a distance privacy is not an issue. Each naturally ventilated cottage has a Swahili-style matuki thatch roof and a verandah with hammocks and chairs, crisp linen on king-size beds, and African decorative touches. The bathroom is big enough to do cartwheels in. The entire property is designed to promote relaxation, with little couches and daybeds hidden in corners. There is a dive center on lodge property, as well as plenty of water sports.

Perfect for large dive groups, this location has one of the only beaches that is not consumed by the tide, and it's spacious and neat—perfect if you're spending most of your time outside and in the water. A voluminous central dining and lounge area opens up to the expansive gardens and it's just down a path to the beach and dive center. Spanning either side, along walkways, are simple rooms, each with their own small patio that overlooks the grounds. Try and get rooms on the left-hand side of the lodge as they are more updated.

High season has a $15 per person, per night supplement.

In Swahili, pole pole means to go slowly, and at this intimate little resort this is very much encouraged. One of the smallest resorts on the island means you will have a lot more privacy and access to facilities. Spend days reading in the shade on daybeds on each balcony or kayaking in the intertidal mangroves around the small tide-dependent beach. Built around eco-principles the property is unpretentious and laid-back and has some of the best food on the island. Pole Pole may be rustic in construction, but is terrific for privacy and service.