Matemwe is a string of fishing villages and small lodges along the north-east coast of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar. It is the closest beach on the island to Mnemba Atoll, the small private island offshore whose reef offers the best snorkelling and diving on the East African coast, and that proximity has shaped Matemwe's character: a slower, more upmarket and more sea-focused alternative to the bigger resort villages at Nungwi and Kendwa further north.
The beach itself is wide, white, and protected by a long fringing reef perhaps a kilometre offshore. At low tide the lagoon empties almost completely, revealing miles of sand flats where village women still gather seaweed in long parallel rows — Zanzibar produces a sizeable share of the world's commercial seaweed, and the seaweed gardens of Matemwe are a working part of village economy you can walk through at almost any low tide. At high tide the lagoon fills, and the swimming is calm, warm and turquoise.
Accommodation runs the full range from very simple beachfront guesthouses in the villages to several of Zanzibar's most expensive boutique hotels and a luxury lodge on the spit pointing toward Mnemba. The village core is small, the daladala from Stone Town takes about ninety minutes, and the place retains an active fishing economy alongside the tourist trade — outrigger ngalawa canoes draw up on the sand at dawn with the night's catch.