zanzibar is such an awesome place to travel but just like anywhere in the world every
place has it's good and it's bad and while i was traveling there i had a decent amount of dishonest
or negative things that happened to me and in this week's video i want to share those experiences
with you along with tips so that in case these happen to you you can be aware of it and navigate
around the situation and i hope none of it does happen to you but i'm trying to create the video
that i wish i got to watch and a tip before we get started i love to look at wiki travel
and read the section that says safety because it usually breaks down some of the intricate
scams and it has helped me in so many places in the world to be like oh i know what's going
on right now this ain't gonna happen but the wiki travel for safety isn't available for zanzibar so
i feel compelled to make this video which by the way if you're new here i'm christine with where in
the world is cL and i make travel videos every week to help you get up get out and go travel
so if you like to travel consider subscribing all right let's dive in i'm kicking this off
with three stories of scams in the making or just moments in which i was like am i getting scammed
my gut's telling me something is really weird here and the first one starts with constantly
getting pulled over and so we had a driver in zanzibar which i highly recommend especially if
you're trying to navigate the entire island but we would get pulled over by the police and they
would just wait and look at us and we'd roll down the windows so that they could look in the car
but they never had us come out and they never said anything to us but we would just wait and
they would look at us and we would look at them and on one of these instances i turned to my
driver and i was like what are we waiting for and he told me they're waiting for you to pay them and
i said do i have to and he was like no and so we just went and this is the opposite of what happens
when you're traveling in mexico you get pulled over by the police in mexico and it's game over
hopefully not for you that's just been my experience but that was what happened on
half a dozen occasions in zanzibar and so just be aware of that and my tip for you here is you have
the potential to just get out of there so tell your driver to go the second one that really
confused me is that every day there were like these random tourist fees or tourist certificates
that we needed to pay for and it was always like a super nominal small amount you know two dollars
one dollar five dollars but it happened just about every single day we were on the island
and i never understood why we needed to be paying for them but something to be aware of and if you
are from zanzibar know anything about zanzibar drop your comments below we're all community
and let's help each other out but my tip is be aware that these things happen and i kept all
my receipts and i paid for all of them okay this third story i'm gonna tell you i realized does
not have a helpful tip with it it's just a story that makes me freaking sweat thinking about it so
i'm pushing it to the end of the video and keeping all of the stories with the helpful tips up top
because i'm here to help you out all right let's talk about money because i don't want you to get
ripped off in zanzibar there are two helpful tips that i have for you here and the first one get in
that mindset of you're going to be haggling and negotiating for everything that you do that's just
the way it is in zanzibar but i want to give you a little ammo for your back pocket of an example
of something that we haggled and what we actually paid in the end just so you have a reference point
and how it went down because negotiating the sand is new for me so the situation here is we wanted
to have a boat take us out to the reef and the sand bar that's near number island for three hours
of snorkeling and boating around and swimming and hanging out at the sandbar we didn't want any food
we wanted to byo so we also wanted a bucket with some ice and so that's what we were negotiating
for and when we rolled up the boat captain is the one who's negotiating with us and the situation
was that you right in the sand the starting price which was 500 000 tanzanian shillings which at
this moment in time translates this much in u.s dollars and we basically negotiated back and forth
we were there for about 15 to 20 minutes which i was like this is a long time to be negotiating
for a three hour activity anyway that's how long it took but we got the final price down to 160
000 tanzanian shillings which to be honest i don't know if that's a good price or not but
that's what we paid but it was a lot of fun and just one thing to know is that like we couldn't
even really snorkel at the end because they were the snorkels were in such bad condition that my
goggles were just filling up with water but i mean i don't know what do you expect
i hope that helps the second tip for you is around pain and protecting your credit card which
if you're getting some value out of this video cheers that like button and consider subscribing
and drop your tips below if you have any other experiences that might help the community
all right when you're paying with your credit card if let's say you're at a restaurant make sure the
waiter or waitress is bringing the card charger to the table and your card is never out of your site
at some places you are actually going to a cashier at a restaurant to pay and so make sure
you're checking your receipts just like normal and lastly when you're coming to this island consider
bringing multiple credit cards and debit cards this is something you should do all the time when
you're traveling the world link in the description below for more international travel helpful tips
that i have but this was especially important for me in zanzibar because not just one but two of my
credit cards got compromised even though none of them ever left my site these next three examples
are around things being less real or being less than what you paid for and my first example starts
with buying sunscreen zanzibar sun super intense you cuddle or sunscreen and if you can two tips
one bring it from where you're traveling to and if you have to tip number two buy it on the island
make sure that you are checking the sunscreen before you purchase it and so sunscreen on this
island relative to other things is more expensive than usual and a lot of times it's not real so in
other words if you're going to a large hotel or resort and buying sunscreen you're probably going
to be pretty successful but if you're going to even a highly reviewed and rated pharmacy
in stone town they are mixing that sunscreen with other lotion or water and you can just tell in the
consistency it ain't the same and my poor friends got so sunburned because they bought some so
just something to look out for speaking of pharmacies my second tip for you here is
if you happen to catch a cold like i did and have to buy some medicine if your medicine
says 16 capsules open it on the spot in front of the pharmacist and make sure all 16 are in there
because i was charged the full price for half the number of pills that i should have gotten
in my cold medicine and my friend had to go back and pay the same price for all of the medicine
so just another one to look out for and this last one is if you like to go out drinking and have
a good time and go to the bars consider doing bottle service anytime you can there's i don't
want to call it fake alcohol although it might be fake alcohol you could call it bottom shelf
alcohol but i have never seen my poor friends so sick the next day and it's not because they drink
a lot either and my other tip for you don't drink the ice so yes i did drink warm tanqueray straight
this next tip i wish i had more snacks with me food takes forever in zanzibar and that's fine
it's a very pole pole laid back lifestyle but it does just take forever and a lot of times
i had really bad meals in all of the videos that i posted i posted a lot of the highlights and the
good meals i did have some amazing meals but more often than not and i would say on average
more than half the time i had really bad meals and a lot of times it wasn't sanitary whether
you see the cook coming out of the bathroom not washing their hands or experiences like flies all
over your seafood that just smells funky and is definitely not fresh seafood so bring snacks and
this last one and again all of these are just my experience it doesn't mean it's gonna happen to
you all right okay this last one is as cute as the kids are they will follow you around they
will beg you for money and they will be trying to pickpocket you that was my experience so just
look out for that okay i'm sweating just thinking about telling you this final story um and a
disclaimer before i share it the reason why i don't know if i'm gonna make this video available
to everyone is this isn't a rant this is really me trying to provide the helpful tips that i wish
i got to see before i traveled somewhere and i made a video similar to this for tulum mexico and
a lot of people thought that i was just trying to hate on tulum when i actually really loved
i'm planning my return trip so i just don't want you to get the wrong idea and don't forget to add
your helpful tips in the comments okay let's tell the story so remember earlier i told you
about that boat that we haggled for to go take us out to snorkel and swim and stuff
while we were out there this is just my experience but when i was traveling in zanzibar i almost
never if not ever saw any authorities wearing masks during the pandemic but while we were out
there a police boat came up and the driver the policeman was wearing a mask and sunglasses to
completely cover his face and he had someone who was not a policeman in the front of the boat and
they came up to our boat and there was basically this exchange between our driver and their driver
and it was a lot of them talking and a lot of them talking about us and looking at us and
then looking at each other and talking and i don't know what was happening what i was
expecting was some kind of we needed to pay money or maybe it's another tourist certificate or
i don't know what but that exchange went down i felt very nervous during the situation um
i again i share this just to share my experience it doesn't mean it's going to happen to you i love
this one for the end because i don't have a tip around it other than i hope it doesn't happen to
you but that exchange went down for at least like five to seven minutes and by the time they finally
left i was just like i don't know what the heck just happened zanzibar that's what i got for you
i have a whole series of videos of other helpful tips around xander's apartment make sure you
check them out i'm here every week with helpful videos i hope to see you in the next one ciao