&Beyond Mnemba Island
Twelve bandas on a sandbank off Zanzibar, inside a reserve that existed before the lodge did.
Mnemba is a small oval island north-east of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, reached by boat from Matemwe. It is ringed by the Mnemba Atoll, a marine conservation area established before the lodge and policed since. Green turtles nest on the beach directly in front of the rooms, and the atoll wall drops away close enough to swim to. Nobody is on the island but the guests and the staff — the island is small enough to walk round in twenty minutes.
&Beyond runs twelve bandas in palm thatch and timber, each with its own stretch of beach and a butler, holding a maximum of around twenty-four guests. The island can be taken whole. There is no menu in the usual sense: the kitchen cooks to the party. Diving, snorkelling and dhow sailing run from the beach, and the conservation programme — turtle monitoring, reef work, the dune forest — is run by the lodge rather than contracted out.
The reserve came first. Mnemba's marine area was protected before the lodge was built, and the reef in front of the island is measurably healthier than the water a few kilometres away. Very few properties in this register can make that claim in that order.
Barefoot without apology. There is no gym, no spa building and no air conditioning in the classic sense. The property has resisted adding them for three decades, and the twelve bandas are the same scale they always were.
Who it is not for
Mnemba is wrong for guests who measure a stay by facilities: there is no spa, no gym, no second restaurant and no pool. It is wrong for families with small children who need shade, structure and a kids' club — the island offers none of the three. And it is wrong for travellers who dislike sand indoors, insects and the general porousness of a thatched building. Those wanting the same water with a resort behind it should look at Zil Pasyon or Desroches.
Sources
- andbeyond.com — twelve bandas, exclusive-use available, Mnemba Island Marine Conservation Area
- Guest maximum and turtle-season restrictions unverified with the property. Confirm before publication.
Booking
Private Island Resorts arranges each stay on request, quoting the rates available for the island and dates. No benefit should be assumed unless it is confirmed in writing for the individual reservation.
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