Mozambique is famous for its beaches and rightly so. With stable warm weather, clear Indian ocean, abundant wildlife and minimal tourists there are some heavenly beaches to be found in Mozambique.
Types of beaches
Remote
Many of Mozambique’s beaches are very remote. Once on these beaches you will often have the entire beach to yourself. You can easily find beaches like this within a couple of hours of Maputo and more so the further you travel north. These beaches always need a 4×4 to access them as they are on sand roads. A visit to these beaches require you to take everything you need with you. The beaches are amazing. Long beaches of white sand with a warm turquoise ocean lapping, or sometimes crashing on them. Some of these beaches are bays and some are unsheltered beaches, please read below for more details of these. Some of these remote beaches have lodges so you can stay near them. They then tend to have more visitors. Others are totally isolated and you will rarely see another visitor on them.
Resort
Some of the beaches, particularly bays near villages have grown into beach resorts. This is a beach resort in the Mozambican sense of the word. Do not expect a Portuguese style beach resort. Mozambican resorts always have places to stay and places to get a beer and eat, but often little else. Some of the bigger resorts such as Tofo and Vilankulos have built up more infrastructure and have more activities on offer such as quad biking and surf hire. Please note that there is rarely any lifeguard or lifeboat provision at any of these locations
Unsheltered
Most of the Mozambican coastline is open to the full force of the Indian ocean. There is plenty of space out to sea for large swells to build up. This means unsheltered beaches often have large waves, strong currents and steep slopes. The ocean in these places is not recommended for children who are not strong swimmers. Riptides form and you need to have a good understanding of ocean currents and self rescue if you want to go out very deep into the sea. These beaches are still very beautiful and dramatic and are well worth a visit.
Bay
The coastline provides periodic outcrops of rocks that form sheltered bays. Many of Mozambique’s resorts have built up around these sheltered bays. They allow access to the ocean away from the full force of the incoming waves. These are much more suitable for a family trip to the beach.
Wildlife
The Ocean is teeming with fish and fishing from Mozambique’s beaches is a popular activity with visitors. The edge of the sea is always filled with crabs. Every beach in Mozambique is filled with thousands of them. They are all small and get out of the way quickly once people come near. The crabs tempt in a range of wading birds that patrol the shoreline picking up the crabs that aren’t quick enough to dive back into their holes. Turtles use the Mozambican beaches to nest. Resorts can help you see turtles hatching and turtles laying eggs. The dunes and dune forest behind the beaches hide a wide range of wildlife including elephants in some places.
Access and driving
Most beaches are accessed via sand roads and so a 4×4 is essential to visit almost all of them, beyond a couple of the major resorts. Driving on the beach is illegal in Mozambique and can damage turtle nests. In some locations the only way to access the beach is to drive onto it. If this is the case please drive onto the edge of the beach and then park. Illegal driving along the beach is rigidly policed and people have been stopped in the most remote places for this – the fines are large. There is plenty of sand driving on the dunes and sand roads, so there is no need to drive on beaches.
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