Vilanculos
Gateway to the beautiful Bazaruto Archipelago, Vilanculos offers plenty of local interest and excellent accommodation!
When to go to Vilanculos
Best Time to Go
The best time to travel to Vilanculos is the period from May to October, as this is dry season.
Pretty coastal town
A range of exciting activities
Gateway to Bazaruto Archipelago
Excellent-value accommodation
A Charming Beach Town
Situated in south-eastern Mozambique, almost all travellers heading out to the Bazaruto Archipelago will pass through Vilanculos (also known as Vilankulo). This means that the coastal town is often overlooked as a destination in its own right. While it doesn’t offer the sheer remoteness of the Bazaruto islands, and its beaches aren’t as breathtakingly pristine, the beaches are still gorgeous and Vilanculos has a lot of local interest. Additionally, the town’s accommodation is very good value! It’s brilliant for budget-conscious travellers seeking a diverse and interesting beach experience by combining the town with a trip to the Bazaruto Archipelago.
Activities
The gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago, Vilanculos offers an amazing variety of water-based activities, as well as horseriding, tuk-tuk tours, biking, and town visits.
Diving and snorkelling
Visit picture-perfect beaches
Explore local towns
Sport fishing
Kite surfing
Horse-riding adventures
Explore by fat bike
Tour by tuk-tuk
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Staff at local properties are happy to arrange scuba diving excursions for you through a local PADI centre. The Bazaruto and Vilanculos area is famous for its treasure trove of colourful corals and other marine life, including clownfish, parrotfish, green and hawksbill turtles, dolphins, dugongs, and migrating whales. This is a dream destination for snorkellers too! Venture out at low tide, and you can have fun spotting all sorts of marine marvels below the waves.
Next to the pristine Bazaruto beaches, with their pure white sands and sparkling turquoise waters, the beaches of Vilanculos really are special in their own right!
Wander through Vilanculos’ markets, enjoy a meal and drinks at a nearby restaurant, and interact with the friendly locals. The town has a lot of character, and you can really immerse yourself in local life here.
This activity is also organised through local companies. Keen anglers can fish for an astonishing variety of species, among them giant black marlin, broadbill, sailfish, wahoo, and king mackerel. A variety of methods is offered, ranging from ultra-light tackle spinning to heavy tackle big game fishing.
Both lessons and kite safaris are possible, with the latter offering opportunities to spot rays, dolphins, and whale sharks while surfing. The islands of Bazaruto provide superb conditions for this sport.
See it all from the saddle when you embark on an equine adventure along the Vilanculos coastline – serene stretches of beaches, idyllic inland lakes, and the pearl necklace of the archipelago, viewed from the high red sand dunes beside the shore.
Hop up onto a fat bike – a bike with gigantic tyres – and go for a super-scenic cycle ride over the sands.
A tuk-tuk is a motorised version of the traditional cycle rickshaw. Jump aboard one of these, and you can cover a lot of ground, taking in all the sights of Vilanculos and surrounds.
History
The town is named after Gamela Vilankulo Mukoke, who was a local tribal chief. As it’s considered the gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago, Vilanculos attracts a lot of travellers and has received significant investment into its tourism infrastructure.
Talk to someone who’s been there
Real expertise doesn’t come from a few trips to Africa. All our specialists have either been guides, run the camps, or grown up and lived in Africa. That’s over 600 years of genuine safari experience.Good to Know
01.When should you travel to Vilanculos?
April and November are good. However, December through to March sees the rains sweep in, bringing uncomfortably high humidity – we tend not to advise travelling to the area during these months of the year.
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