When I first moved to Africa, I admit I was a little nervous to operate a vehicle there. Of course I knew the facts, I was licensed in the state of Massachusetts where drivers are called “Mass-holes” for the high quantity of illegal driving moves that are performed daily. But the streets of Addis were also not going to be my starting point. A city where I have actually had a taxi driver purposely drive on the opposite side of the road against traffic to get to a roundabout because it, “would be much faster than waiting.”

When my boyfriend and I decided to spend our March break in Zanzibar, I did my usual travel procedures which involves doing a mix of budget saving research mixed with not sacrificing any of the must see or must have elements of going to a new place. Since I actually never even went through the government process to get a license that could be used in Addis to begin with because of my road fear there, it wasn’t initially in my research to think that Zanzibar would be any different when it came to licensing laws. I figured I probably needed either an International Driving License (can be applied for in your home country, in the US through AAA, and normally is valid for 1 year) or the more complicated country license equivalent which is what Ethiopia requires, an actual Ethiopian license that has been confirmed through fancy paperwork and fees to be equivalent to your home country license. That’s why it wasn’t until about a week before our trip that the idea to look this up even crossed my mind. But I’m so glad it did, because if you’re like me, and don’t mind some inner-city traffic, roads without curbs (and at times unpaved), oh and driving on the left-hand side of the road, it’s a great choice.

First of all, if you’re unsure you want to rent, or hesitant for any reason to rent, please note that you do NOT need to make a reservation or decide in advance. We arrived at Abeid Amani Karume (Zanzibar) International Airport on a Saturday evening, without any vehicles and took a regular hotel transfer vehicle to our hotel the first night for about $20 usd. We spent our first day in Stonetown, exploring the streets by foot where you very much do not need a vehicle and getting a sense of the area, culture, and driving protocols. On the alternative, if you are extremely confident in your driving capabilities and aren’t starting your travels in Stonetown, you might want to book in advance and have your rental car company meet you at the airport with your vehicle for no additional cost.

Again, I had done some research before coming to Zanzibar to begin with and in my findings had concluded the following . . .

1. You can use any valid driving license to rent a car in Zanzibar. Just bring your license with you and that’s all you need. (They won’t even take an international driving one)
2. No matter what rental car place you choose to rent from, you will need to obtain a driving permit from the government. These permits are VERY easy to get, it’s $10 and most rental car places will ask you if you already have one in your rental process and if you don’t they will process it for you for the $10 fee. Because of this, you would need to at least contact a rental place the night before you want the car so that they can process this for you.

Since we did not make a reservation in advance, and my research did not lead me to specifics on which rental car place to go with (although I imagine all of them are roughly the same) we chose to ask our hotel Maru Maru which rental service they would recommend. They gave us a card for Bright Car Hire where rental prices started at $25 a day (No additional cost for a second driver). This either matched or was cheaper than any online option I had found. We made a reservation online (the night before we wanted the car) and an associate messaged back almost immediately on Whatsapp following up on our reservation. He asked for pictures of our licenses so that he could secure us each a permit ($10 each) and ensured us that he would have it done and ready with the car for 1pm the following day.

Sure enough, he was prompt and waiting for us the following day at 1pm outside of our hotel! Some notes here:

1. If you do not carry around cash on your International trips, or not much cash, be sure you select the option to pay in full online when you first rent the car. If you only pay the deposit, they will assume you are paying the remainder in cash and if you don’t have exact change in cash, they might not either 🙂 This could become complicated because they’re looking for a quick drop off and we spent some time transferring usd and negotiating with our associate because we assumed we could use a card during pickup since they had it available online.
2. Your associate drove your rental car to come get you. He likely doesn’t have a way back to the company . . . I’m sure it is not required but if you are going the same direction as your associate you might want to offer him a ride. Or he might assume that you are going to drop him off back at the company as your “practice drive.” We were going across the island anyways and there’s only one main road to go across practically right past where he needed to be dropped off so we did do this.
3. This was a budget car service with basic auto insurance limited to operations of the car. Make sure to ask any questions and know what you’re already insured for through other means (credit cards, e.g.) before you rent and know that you are accepting some level of risk when you rent from budget services.

Once we dropped off our associate, and got used to the left-hand driving, we had a very smooth time with the rental car. In general, Stonetown is very crowded, both with people and different vehicles. For the first 15 min of driving the car within the city on the way out towards the main road, I was very cautious and nervous to be driving a rental car. I wanted out of the city ASAP. There was a moment where I thought, did we make the right choice? But once we got out of the city, roads were mostly clear, wide, and clearly marked towards the east and north of the island where the other major travel destinations are.

Shortly into our first drive this trip, I gave over driving privileges to my boyfriend who’s first time it was driving on the left-hand side of the road. Often I like to have control when I’m in a foreign country driving in new conditions, but with the exception of some minor freak out moments (due to the left-hand side of the road, not my boyfriends driving) everything was very easy.

We didn’t run into any issues with the car, driving or rental company during our time in Zanzibar. In fact, we liked driving so much that even though we initially only booked to card for 48 hours, we decided to extend for an additional 48 hours which Bright Car Hire made effortless. All we needed to do was go online to their website, select the same model of vehicle to rent for 2 days on the additional dates that we wanted and pay by card. No need to drive back to Stonetown or anywhere else to meet an associate. We did however run into one circumstance that is apparently typical of driving on the island . . .

We were flagged down twice by police officers at vehicle stopping points where all cars were being flagged down for license inspection. Both times, they asked to see our original licenses and our driving permits issued by our car rental company. The first time this happened, it was quick and effortless and he sent us on our way almost instantly. The second time this happened, after checking our documents he asked us if we had any extra money since him and the other officers “didn’t have money for lunch.” My boyfriend’s response is always- “Sorry. we only have cards on us, no cash” whenever people ask for money. This was enough for the officer to politely send us on our way. I imagine a lot of expats don’t know what to do in this situation, but know you should NOT pay them. Be polite, reasonable, but do not give in because this is essentially a bribe and there is no kind of traffic toll or fee collection on the island.

Finally, I will speak briefly towards the return process of the vehicle because I will say that this is one process that could have gone smoother and I’m sure it would have with some planning. We planned to take the ferry to Dar Salaam the afternoon of our last day with our rental car. Because of this, we had asked our associate if we could meet him at the Ferry Station. Initially, this seemed like it would be no problem, but when we were on our way to the station we got a message from our associate saying that his colleague would be picking up the car instead. This was a little concerning only because we had not met this person before, yet were supposed to leave the vehicle with him. It turned out to be very easy and all we did once we found his colleague, was confirmed via a phone call with our original associate that this was the correct person. His colleague ended up being great, offering to not only help us obtain the ferry tickets we needed from a sales booth but also drive us by our original Stonetown hotel so we could drop off our larger luggage and travel light for our time in Dar.

Overall, I would highly recommend renting a car in Zanzibar, as any challenge or hangup we encountered all added to our experience! I would also recommend using Bright Car Hire given you’ve read through the rest of the post and are aware of all our unique interactions with them. Traveling Zanzibar was made so much easier having our own vehicle, having the freedom to do and go where we wanted, not to mention that instead of paying for many transfer taxis, we paid a flat rate of only $25 a day. In the end, we saved money this way and had a more enriching experience!