cash

Oh..oops forgot to list a bottle of water.

Depends on where you buy things. Folks should be able to change 5000 Shilling notes, but if you're worried get 10 1000-notes.

Its roughly 1250 Shillings to the US dollar. So a 10,000 Shilling note is US$8.

I would keep several 2000tsh and 1000tsh notes for taxis and small purchases etc as I found some taxi drivers didn't have change (and I used a particular one regularly and therefore trusted him) for 5000tsh eg if the fare was 2000tsh only. A large bottle of water (1.5l) is 1500tsh in airports and resorts but in supermarkets and corner stores ususally only 600 tsh. Nice meals depend on your taste - I like local food and could eat for 2500tsh easily. The most expensive meal where I lived (Mwanza) was 17500 tsh for a 9 - 10 course teppanyaki meal outdoors overlooking the waterfront of Lake Victoria. Otherwise some other ex-patriate places charged 6000-12000tsh for a nice meal.
I did a spice tour on my own for US$40 plus tips for the guide and boy who helped get fruits etc. I went in low season and did a private tour, in high season you can ask at the Information Centres and do group Spice tours for something like US$8-12.
As far as US dollars go - make sure notes are post-2000 as many places will not accept notes issued before 2000 (some kind of fraud guard), you get much better exchange rates for the larger notes but for tipping etc guides etc, yes make sure have some small notes. Hope this is of help.

Beer was generally between 1500 and 2500 TSh depending on how fancy the place we bought it was.

Oh, here's a note about ATMs that I didn't know. It will let you choose the denomination of bill it spits out at you! I think it allowed you to choose 5,000; 10,000; 20,000 if I recall correctly. And my advice is the same as before: get the smllest bills possible. If you have some big bills in US dollars you'll be covered to exchange or whatever at a good rate. There's no reason I know of to have large TSh bills.

#4 - there are no Tsh 20,000 notes... Surprised about having the option with the ATMs - never noticed you could choose.
Regarding the US$, you are actually better off bringing bigger notes, will get you better exchange rates. And don't worry about the Tsh - if people don't have change they will find someone somewhere to change your money.

bring some US$ 20, BUT NEW NOTES, they have this big problem in Africa of accepting old notes. Actually, i used travellers, notes, dollars and euros, and the ATMs Some of them won´t take pins bigger than 4 figures (i have a card with 6 figures as a pin and could not withdraw even in Barclays....).

Beer - BARS TSH 2000 - 2500
Water - in Bars/REstaurants big bottle Tsh 1000/supermkt 500
Good meal - in the streets it goes from Tsh 1500 to Tsh 7000. In better restaurants, from Tsh 7000 up, in both mainland and Zanzibar

I paid US4 10 for a spice tour, 3 weeks ago!

Good luck

#5, no 20,000 notes? Hmm, I thought there was a third choice on the ATM, but maybe not. In any case, yes, I was surprised to see choices, too. Perhaps this is not common, as I only used one ATM while there (NBC in Stonetown). I just assumed it held true for all other ATMs, since in America they are standardized.

oops, pressed send too soon...

As far as people finding change, that wasn't my experience. I had actually a really hard time with it. But, I was only there for three weeks, so my experience may not be representative of the standard. In any case, we were constantly told people couldn't make change for 10,000 and 5,000 notes, to the point of forcing us to go ask fellow travelers if they could give us change. One time, we were eating lunch at a cafe and our bill came to 16,000TSh, so we paid with 20,000 (I guess 2 10,000 notes) and they only had a 5,000Tsh note to make change with, they couldn't give us 4,400. So, they were asking us if we had 1,000, which we did not, as it was the last day of our trip and we had completely exhausted our small bills store. The lady just stood there, looking displeased with us, and finally went away to see if she could get change, which she was not able to find, so she had to give us more change than we were owed. I was really surprised by this throughout our trip, as I could only think that if most patrons are giving them exact change, as they seem to demand, then they should have plenty of small bills and coins to give to people who don't have change! In any case, it was a constant challenge for us. Just get lots of small bills and coins, esp. if you plan on shopping, bargaining/bartering and eating out.

Finally, to #6, I agree with "some" $20s, but not many. They are useful for tips to safari drivers, but they are too small for the best exchange rates and too large to pay for small shopping and eating expenses. I woud concentrate my money in the very small TSh range, with lots of $1s as well, and then some $50s and 100s for changing or paying a bill at a hotel.

Just back from Tanzania, and my experience is that I paid for everything in TShs apart from
a) initial taxi from airport (US$20 to centre of Dar including stop at Tazara station to buy train ticket), and
b) national park entry fees (Gombe seemed insistent on having US$ not anything else if you were non-resident, so I guess it's a good idea to work out how much you're likely to spend in parks on fees, official accommodation and guides, round it up, and bring that amount in US$).

Where hotels quote prices in US$, there is a big difference in the exchange rate used if you pay in TShs. One hotel quoted $35 and turned it into 35,000 TShs, another quoted $50 and made it 65,000 TShs. These were reasonably nice hotels - you can find much cheaper.

You can use ATMs for TShs in most towns, and at Dar airport - and I never saw a 20,000 TSh note. I never had serious problems getting the right change if I tendered a 5,000 TSh note, and even remembered to ask for non-torn notes in my change if a shopkeeper was trying to palm off really grotty old notes on me.

Note that credit cards are hardly ever used - not even, for example, to buy air tickets from the Precision Air office at Dar airport (so I had to take a big wadge of TShs out to do that)!

Martin