With the development of tourism in Zanzibar, the beaches of the Tanzanian archipelago are the setting of frequent intimate encounters between tourists and local inhabitants. If the flirty friendliness of the beach boys with vacationers is mostly a way of securing commercial benefits in a context characterized by informality, the sexual and emotional intimacy with female tourists is an efficient way of accumulating economic and cultural capital. The emotional investment of women in these “holiday stories,” which can be important, sometimes leads to the formation of sustainable couples. While sexuality provides the beach boys with necessarily limited retributions, conjugality opens up perspectives of long-term capital accumulation that are reflected in their upward social mobility.