Vamizi Island Lodge
Price Range:
Luxury Accommodation
Rating:
5 Star Accommodation
Accommodation Type:
Boutique Hotel
Location:
Mozambique, Mozambique
Vamizi Island Lodge
Crusoe invented castaway chic, but Vamizi Island Lodge defines it, with thirteen impossibly romantic timber villas strung loosely along one of the world's most beautiful beaches.
Location
Arching out of the Vamizi seas - twelve kilometres long and a kilometre wide - this whale-shaped curve of beach and bush is drenched in sunshine and breezes. A slender coral island just off Mozambique's remote northern coast, Vamizi Island is part of the Quirimbas Archipelago, sometimes called the new Maldives.
The Lodge
Simply grand or grandly simple - this lodge isn't about the usual five star luxury and all mod cons, it's about the more rarified pleasures of exclusive island life. Imagine wafting through muslin and filtered sunlight, flopping straight from your room into a private ocean and enjoying elegant lunches with your toes in the sand...
The Rooms
Exclusivity is one of Vamizi Island's greatest assets and, as the only lodge on the island, it has the space to spread wide, so each villa amply commands its own part of the beach. Thirteen villas - one or two bedroomed - are right on the shoreline, all with to-die-for views of the ocean.
Both airy and generous - with over 170 square metres of timbered floor to pad about on, they have plenty of space for spreading beds, sofas, a marble shower and vanity area and outside, a sun deck.
Vamizi Island is not about the ordinary five star stuff, so don't expect TVs or air conditioning - it's all about barefoot relaxation and rooms as open as they can be, to catch the natural breezes.
Facilities
Vamizi offers a distinctively island table, serving surf-fresh seafood and other tropical dishes, set off by the sea breaking on the shore just feet away.
During the day, there’s the relative formality of the thatched open dining room in the main lodge, or choose to retreat to Muntu Nkulu, the new castaway restaurant open during the winter season on the south side of the island, for a buffet and total relaxation.
You can also take the total desert island approach - alone with a shipwrecked picnic on some deserted beach.
Evenings are a more glamorous affair, with a castaway twist, fuelled by grills on the beach, or more elaborate dishes under lantern light in the dining room.
With cocktails and fine wines at the bar - and acres of cushions and sofas for sitting very soft at any point - you might just feel that heaven can wait.
Activities
You can be as active or as passive you you like at Vamizi:
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Relax on pristine white beaches and soak up the African Sun
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On the surface, Vamizi Island is utterly mellow. Go a few feet below and everything changes, as the Vamizi seas - which lodge residents share with no other tourists at all - are bristling with big ocean action.
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Some of the dives here are said to be the best in the world and the deep sea fishing better than the whole East African coast.
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There are snorkelling trips, castaway picnics, whale watching expeditions and boats, from kayaks to traditional dhows.
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Wander the miles of sugar sand untouched beaches, or delve into the bush for a spot of monkey - or bird-watching.
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Vamizi Island is basically one big spa - with nurture for the entire self, both above and below the water. Enjoy the luxuries of some of the best energy and body treatments available –such as shiatsu, reiki and cranio-sacral therapy.
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Enjoy yoga sessions on the beach
Children
A gently shelving beach, perfect sand and plenty of sunshine make Vamizi Island a haven for parents and children. The sea is rarely rough on the shore and the water is a perfect temperature, with no end of shallows to toddle about in and small wondrous things to see, hear and feel. It is a family friendly paradise!
Children Policy
All children welcome
