Ultimate Vilanculos Travel Guide
Vilanculos is a small beach town on the coast of Mozambique. With its own airport, the town is easily accessible to beachgoers from near and far. This is the ultimate Vilanculos travel guide, whether you’re staying for a weekend or more.
The town popular among European tourists. Although Portuguese is the official language, most people spoke enough touristy English, so language was no barrier for us.
If you’re not lounging on the beach, then your main activity will likely involve a boat. That said, the boat rides can get pricey and add up so you may only end up doing one like we did.
Check out my supplemental posts below to support to this Vilanculos travel guide.
Money
The local currency is the Mozambican Metical (MZN/MTS). In Vilanculos, card payment was only accepted at our accommodation and at one restaurant. There are several ATMs in town, so we just kept returning whenever we needed more. Once we were told a restaurant had a card machine but then there was no signal for it to work so Wilhelm had to run to a machine to take out cash. Tap payment is not available so bring your physical card.
Malaria
Mozambique is a malaria-risk country. There is medicine you can take to help prevent this. We didn’t take any medicine, but it is recommended. Please consult your doctor. The US CDC recommends the following: Atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, mefloquine, or tafenoquine.
You should bring or buy a lot of mosquito spray or wipes in any case. We were bit quite a lot if we forgot to put on our mosquito wipes in the evening. My favorite for traveling is this brand. The eco stuff just doesn’t work for me.
How to get to Vilanculos
Air
The most direct way to get to Vilanculos is by flying in. The airport has regular flights to/from Maputo (the capital of Mozambique) and Johannesburg, South Africa. Both flights are under 2 hours.
You can get a visa on arrival at the airport here for USD 50. For travelers from South African, the Rand is accepted (though South African passport holders don’t need a visa). We also carried USD as a backup just in case. I read in some places that card were accepted, but that wasn’t the case for us. Make sure you have enough passport pages as the visa will take up a full page.
Driving
We heard of a couple of travelers who were on road trips in Mozambique. The drive from Maputo is 10 hours so you may want to break it up somewhere like Tofo, which is a small coastal town that looks very nice. From some other blogs I’ve read, it is suggested you don’t speed as the fines will be high if you’re caught. Additionally, I read on several blogs that the police stop cars often and you may have to pay bribes and waste time negotiating. Doesn’t seem worth it to me.
Note: Please let me know if you’ve traveled there by car recently so I can update this if it wasn’t the case for you.
Bus
There is a bus/minibus service from Maputo at the JUNTA bus station. The ride will take a minimum of 10 hours, depending on the stops. Several blogs recommended catching the early morning buses at 5am; otherwise, you may have to wait till noon for the buses to fill up.
Best time to visit
August is high season. We visited in June and there were other tourists around. All the restaurants were open. However, some restaurants (that I would think would be super popular) only had a few customers due to it being low season.
The main impact the low season will have on your trip is boat ride activities. Unless you book a private tour/excursion, the tour companies will wait until they have enough customers to make a trip out to the islands; you may have to wait a day for this.
I enjoyed visiting Vilanculos in June because it gave me a break from the start of winter in Joburg.
Getting around
We used the tuk-tuks to get around town. In our experience, we paid around MZN 200 for trips from one end of town to the other. Your lodge can organize a pickup service from the airport for you. There are also taxis waiting around the airport and that will likely be MZN 600.
How long to stay in Vilanculos
We spent a long, 4-day weekend here and felt that we explored the town and did all the activities we wanted. I would return for a work-away-from-home vacation in a self-catering option to just enjoy the food and weather.
Where to stay in Vilanculos
Check out all the best options in Vilanculos from guest houses and self-catering to high-end hotels and luxury accommodation.
What to do in Vilanculos
Don’t just lounge on the beach, check out all there is to do in Vilanculos.
Top restaurants in Vilanculos
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner options to satisfy your seafood craving.
Got any suggestions for my Vilanculos travel guide? Let me know in the comments!