Tofo

Currency budget Mozambique

Dive centres and the better lodges quote in dollars or rand and take cards; the market, the chapas, the bakery and most beach bars are meticais in cash. Rand are accepted in many places at a poor rate. Change or draw in Inhambane, where the banks are.

ATMs & cards

The banks — Millennium bim, BCI, Standard Bank — are in Inhambane, half an hour away. Do not count on finding a working machine in Tofo itself, and use machines by day.

Draw enough in Inhambane for the stay, or for the days until the next trip into town. Dive centres take cards, the village mostly does not.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety all of Mozambique

A relaxed village where the crime that reaches visitors is theft from the beach and from rooms left open. Police checkpoints are common on the roads to and from Inhambane: carry your passport itself, because the police will not accept copies or photos, and a driver needs a licence, the vehicle papers, two warning triangles and a reflective vest. Do not drive between towns after dark. The surf is real, so swim where others do and not alone. Malaria is present all year.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa Mozambique visa rules

Health & emergencies all of Mozambique

Required to enter

• Yellow fever certificate if arriving from a country where yellow fever is present — and Mozambique also asks it of arrivals from Tanzania, Rwanda and São Tomé, which most lists do not

Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Prawns, crab and the catch of the day off the boats, grilled with piri-piri, and matapa (cassava leaves cooked with peanut and coconut) on the side. The Tofo market sells fresh bread rolls, pão, from the morning bake; buy fish there and most lodges will cook it.

Nightlife

A few beach bars and a market bar that fill with divers and backpackers, a party night or two a week in season, and quiet otherwise.

• Praia do Tofo — the bars along the beachfront
• Tofo market — cheap beer and grilled food around the market stalls

Closing: Around midnight most nights, later on the one or two party nights of the week.

Walk back along the road with a torch rather than along the beach in the dark.

Getting around

• Chapa — the shared minibuses between Inhambane's market and Tofo, about 40 minutes, thinning out by late afternoon
• Boat — the passenger ferry across the bay from Inhambane to Maxixe, where the EN1 and the long-distance buses are
• Bus — Maputo to Inhambane is seven to eight hours on the EN1, leaving before dawn; travel it in daylight only
• On foot — Tofo is one beach and a few sandy streets, and Tofinho is a walk round the point
• Airport: Inhambane (INH), 25 min by road, with flights from Maputo and Johannesburg

eSIM

A data eSIM for Mozambique, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:Works hereWorks here

Must-see

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Portuguese

• HelloOláo-LA
• PleasePor favorpor fa-VOR
• Thank youObrigado / Obrigadao-bree-GA-doo / -da
• Yes / NoSim / Nãoseeng / nowng

Thank you changes with your own gender, not the listener’s: men say obrigado, women obrigada.

Religion

Christian, with a Muslim north

Roughly six in ten Christian, Catholic the largest church, and about a fifth Muslim, mostly in the north and along the coast, where the Ilha de Moçambique has mosques beside its Portuguese churches. Traditional belief and ancestor practice persist across both. Dress more modestly in the north and on the Ilha than in Maputo or the southern beach towns.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Greet in Portuguese — bom dia, boa tarde — before asking anything
• Carry your passport, or a certified copy, at all times; police checks ask for identification
• Carry two warning triangles and reflective vests if you drive; police check, and fine on the spot if they are missing
• Stay polite and patient at a police stop, and ask for a written fine to pay at the station if one is demanded
• Dress modestly in the north and on the Ilha de Moçambique, where most people are Muslim

Don't

• Do not photograph police, soldiers, government buildings or the airport
• Do not drive on the beach — it is illegal, and the fines are real
• Do not buy shells, coral or turtle products; taking them out is illegal
• Do not drink alcohol on a public beach; it is illegal, however many bottles you see
• Do not swim alone off empty beaches, where the currents are strong and nobody is watching