Bagamoyo

Bagamoyo sits on the Indian Ocean coast a short drive north of Dar es Salaam, and packs an extraordinary amount of history into a small area. The town proper was founded at the end of the eighteenth century as an extension of the much older settlement at Kaole, which itself was established by Shirazi Arabs in the eighth century. In the nineteenth century Bagamoyo became one of the most important trading ports on the East African coast, the endpoint of the caravan routes carrying ivory and slaves from the interior, and later the first capital of German East Africa before the administration moved to Dar es Salaam in 1891.

The old town today is dense with layered history. German colonial administrative buildings sit alongside Swahili coral-stone houses with carved doors, Catholic mission buildings from the 1868 Bagamoyo mission are just north of town, and the Kaole ruins ten minutes south preserve two thirteenth-century mosques and dozens of pillar tombs from the Shirazi era. Bagamoyo was also the last stop on the caravan road, and Henry Morton Stanley's body famously rested here before being shipped home in 1904.

Today Bagamoyo is also known for the Bagamoyo College of Arts, one of the leading art schools in East Africa, which hosts an annual arts festival that draws performers from across the region. The town has a lively arts and music scene as a result, and several galleries and studios are worth visiting.

For visitors, Bagamoyo works well as a day trip from Dar es Salaam or as a peaceful one to two night stop on the way north to Saadani or south to Selous. A handful of atmospheric beach lodges just north of town offer palm-shaded beaches, good food and a fraction of the visitor numbers of Zanzibar.