Getting around · Mafia Island
ClassicRas Mbisi Lodge
Beach bandas · 9 open-fronted bandas · Mafia Island, Tanzania
- Tier
- Classic
- Style
- Beach bandas
- Size
- 9 open-fronted bandas
- Region
- Mafia Island
- Nearest airstrip
- Mafia Island
Nine locally built bandas on an eight-kilometre stretch of west-coast beach, with a rooftop bar facing the sunset — the quiet side of the island, away from Chole Bay.
Ras Mbisi stands on its own along Mafia's western shore, on a long run of beach well away from the Chole Bay cluster. Nine open-fronted bandas are the work of local craftsmen in natural materials, each set near the water with somewhere to sit, somewhere to look out from and a bathroom of its own. This side of the island faces the sunset and is where the whale-shark boats work from between roughly October and March, so the position suits a stay built around the sea rather than the marine park's dive sites.
Flying in
The nearest airstrip is Mafia Island. See the real fly-in routes and how the rest of the region connects on the Getting Around map.
Open the fly-in mapEach Wildtouch safari is quoted individually — rates depend on your dates, the camps you choose and how it all links together. Wildtouch prices the whole journey, not a per-night sticker.
Safaris in Tanzania
We don't run a set route through Mafia Island yet. These are our Tanzania safaris today, and Ras Mbisi Lodge can be built into a private itinerary on request.
6-Day Serengeti & Great Migration Luxury Safari
A six-day luxury Tanzania fly-in safari through the Serengeti National Park — the Great Wildebeest Migration, Mara River crossings, Big Five game drives and world-class luxury tented camps deep in the wilderness.
View this safari →7 days7-Day Luxury Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater Safari
A seven-day luxury Tanzania fly-in safari from the Great Migration plains of the Serengeti to the Big Five caldera of the Ngorongoro Crater, with a coffee-plantation horseback tour and an ethical wildlife encounter on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.
View this safari →11 days11-Day Ultimate Tanzania & Zanzibar Fly-In Safari
An eleven-day flagship Tanzania fly-in safari and Zanzibar beach retreat — the Great Migration and Big Five from the Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti, followed by five nights of barefoot luxury on private andBeyond Mnemba Island.
View this safari →Other places to stay nearby
Pole Pole Bungalows
A small, owner-run hillside lodge above Chole Bay inside the Mafia Island Marine Park, as well known for its kitchen as its setting — laid-back rather than polished, and deliberately so.
LuxuryKinasi Lodge
A hillside lodge of fifteen handcrafted rooms looking down over Chole Bay, with a PADI water-sports centre with room for thirty snorkellers and twenty divers at a time.
LuxuryChole Mjini
Treehouses built around baobabs on tiny Chole Island, run without electricity and lit by lantern — a genuinely unusual stay whose income funds village education and conservation projects next door.
ClassicButiama Beach
A relaxed beach lodge a walk along the sand from Kilindoni on the west coast, close to the airstrip and to the water the whale sharks pass through between roughly October and March.
ClassicEco Shamba Kilole Lodge
Six bungalows on a low escarpment over Kilole Bay, set in a thirteen-acre botanical garden, run as a genuine eco-lodge by long-resident owners with solar water heating and food grown or sourced locally.
ComfortBasecamp Mafia Island
The largest and most straightforward option on Chole Bay, right on the beach inside the marine park, with a PADI five-star dive centre running shore and boat dives from the doorstep.