Tanzania National Parks

Serengeti National Park

More than six million hooves pound the legendary Serengeti, whose very name means "endless plains", every year. Triggered by the rains, more than a million wildebeest, 200.000 zebras and 300.000 Thomson’s gazelle gather to undertake their long trek to new grazing lands. The rutting season is a frenzied three week long bout of territorial conquests and mating, followed by survival of the fittest as the 40 kilometre long columns plunge through crocodile infested waters on the annual exodus north. Replenishing the species is the brief population explosion that produces more than 8000 calves a day before the 1000 kilometre pilgrimage begins again.

Tanzania’s first and most famous park, the Serengeti, is renowned for its wealth of leopard and lion. The vast reaches of the park help black rhino to fight extinction and provide a protected breeding ground for the vulnerable cheetah, alongside the Serengeti’s thousands of other diverse species, from the 500 varieties of birds to 100 different types of dung beetle.

After the rains, the Serengeti’s magical golden horizon is transformed into an endless green carpet, flecked with wildflowers. The famous plains are interspersed with wooded hills, towering termite mounds and monumental rocky kopjes, and rivers lined with elegant acacia trees.

To search for the sometimes-elusive wildebeest migration, visit the Serengeti from December to July. To see predators, June to October are the best months. For the best chance of finding the migration, allow a minimum of three days, longer if possible.

Back to top

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area boasts the finest blend of landscapes, wildlife, people and archaeological sites in Africa. It is also a pioneering experiment in multiple land use. For Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the idea of multiple land use means the idea of allowing the co-existence of mankind and wildlife in a natural setting. Traditional African pastoralists co-operate with Tanzania’s government bodies in preserving the natural resources of the area and help to ensure a fantastic experience for tourists.

The first view of the Ngorongoro Crater takes the breath away. Ngorongoro is a huge caldera, or collapsed volcano, 250 square kilometres in size and 600 metres deep. Its spectacular setting and abundance of wildlife combine to make it one of the wonders of the natural world. The crater alone has over 20.000 large animals including some of Tanzania’s last remaining black rhino. Animals are free to enter or leave the crater, but many of them stay for the plentiful water and grazing available on the crater floor throughout the year.

Open grassland covers most of the crater floor, turning yellow with wild flowers in June. The soda lake Makat is a great attraction for flamingos and other water birds, while predators hide in the marsh to ambush animals that come to drink from the river that feeds the lake. Also on the crater floor are swamps, providing water and habitat for elephant and hippo as well as numerous smaller creatures such as frogs, snakes and several cats.

The Lerai forest on the crater floor gets its name from the Maasai word for the elegant yellow-barked acacia tree. The small forest patches on the crater floor are home to leopard, monkey, baboon, and antelope such as waterbuck and bushbuck.

Humans too have been part of Ngorongoro’s landscape for millions of years. The earliest signs of mankind in the Conservation Area are at Laetoli, where hominid footprints are preserved in volcanic rock 3.600.000 years old. The story continues at Olduvai Gorge, a river canyon cut 100 metres deep through the volcanic soil of the Serengeti Plains. Buried in the layers are the remains of animals and hominids that lived  and died around a shallow lake amid grassy plains and woodlands, from two million years ago to the present day. Visitors can learn more details of this fascinating story by visiting the site where guides give on-site interpretation of the gorge.

The most numerous and recent inhabitants of the Ngorongoro Area are the Maasai, who arrived about 200 years ago. Their strong insistence on tradition custom and costume interests many visitors. As of today, there are approximately 42.000 Maasai pastoralists living in Ngorongoro with their cattle, goats and sheep. Their presence is the main difference between the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Tanzania’s National Parks, which do not allow human habitation. Cultural bomas or Maasai villages, give visitors the chance to meet Maasai people on their own terms and learn more about this complex and interesting culture, perhaps taking home some of their carefully designed handicrafts.

Back to top

Tarangire National Park

During Tarangire’s dry season, day after day of cloudless skies seem to suck all moisture from the landscape, turning the waving grasses to platinum blonde, brittle as straw. The Tarangire River is a mere shadow of itself, just a trickle of water choked with wildlife. Thirsty antelope and elephant have wandered hundreds of parched kilometres to Tarangire’s permanent water source.

Herds of elephants - three hundred strong - dig in the damp earth of the riverbed in search of underground springs, while wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, and gazelle mingle with rarer species such as Oryx around each shrinking lagoon. Python climb into the shade of the trees that line Tarangire’s massive southern swamps and hang there like giant malignant fruit, coils neatly arranged over the branches in a perfect sphere. Tarangire in the dry season enjoys the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem.

Tarangire’s huge herds of elephant rival the park’s gigantic, squat baobab trees as its most celebrated feature- ancient matriarchs, feisty young bulls and tiny, stumbling calves are ever present to fascinate visitors with their grace, intelligence and majesty.

The best time to visit Tarangire for wildlife viewing or walking is the dry season, June-October.

Back to top

Lake Manyara National Park

Tucked below the majesty of the Rift Valley wall, Lake Manyara National Park is a thin green band of forest, flanked on one side by the sheer 600 metres high red and brown cliffs of the escarpment and the white-hot shores of an ancient soda lake.

This wedge of surprisingly varied vegetation supports a wealth of wildlife, nourished by the steams flowing out of the escarpment base and waterfalls spilling over the cliffs. Acacia woodland shelters the parks famous tree-climbing lions, laying  languidly among the branches in the heat of the day. Feeding in the undergrowth or dozing in the dry river beds  are the country’s densest populations of buffalo and elephant.

Deep in the south of the park, hot springs bubble to the surface as hippo wallow near the lake’s sedge- lined borders. The  park’s dazzling  variety of  birds   includes thousands of red-billed quelea flitting over the water , pelicans, cormorants and the pink steaks of thousands of flamingo. Manyara is the perfect location for an active safari- canoeing on the lake or mountain biking and abseiling outside the park’s borders.

The dry season (July to October) is best for large mammals, while the wet season (November to June) is  best for bird watching, waterfalls and canoeing.

Back to top

Arusha National Park

Arusha National Park, often overlooked, is in fact a treasure, a rich tapestry of habitats, teeming with animals and birds. From the lush swamps of the Ngurdoto Crater to the tranquil beauty of the  Momela Lakes and  the rocky alpine heights of Mount Meru, the terrain of the park is as varied as it is  interesting . Zebra graze on the  park’s  red  grasslands, and  leopard lurk next to water falls in the shadowy forest. More than 400 species of  bird, both migrant and resident, can be found in Arusha  National Park alongside rare primates such as the black-and  white colobus monkey.

The rewarding climb up Mount Meru passes through forests of dripping Spanish moss, carpeted with clover rising to open heath, spiked with giant lobelia plants.

Delicate klipspringer antelope watch the progress of hikers from the top of  huge boulders, and everlasting flowers cling to the alpine desert underfoot . Once astride the craggy summit, the reward is a sight of Mount Kilimanjaro, breathtaking in the sunrise.

The best time to visit Arusha National Park is during the dry season from July-November, or after the short rains from December- March. The  best months to climb Meru are June-February, with the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro seen from, December-February. The  park lies  just 25 km  east of Arusha and is ideal for a rewarding day trip from  Arusha or Moshi.

Back to top

Kilimanjaro National Park

The great mountain of Kilimanjaro is a metaphor for the compelling beauty of East Africa. Rising in absolute isolation , at  5,895 metres ( 19,336 feet), Kilimanjaro is one of the  highest walkable summits on the planet, a beacon for visitors  from around the world. Just three degrees south of the equator, Kilimanjaro’s great peaks of Kibo and Mawenzi are nonetheless covered all year round with snow and ice. Most reasonably fit and properly guided climbers can experience the triumph of reaching the crater rim with little more than a walking stick, warm clothing and determination. Those who reach Uhuru Point, the actual summit, or Gillman’s point on the lip of the crater (Kilimanjaro is a dormant, but not extinct, Volcano), will have earned their climbing certificates and their memories.

There is, however, so much more to kill than the summit. A journey up the slopes takes visitors on a climatic world tour, from the tropics to the arctic. The grass and cultivated lower slopes turn into lush rainforest, inhabited by elusive elephant, leopard, buffalo and antelope. Higher still, heath and moor land, covered with giant heathers, becomes a surreal alpine desert and finally ice, snow and the biggest view on the continent.

December to February are warmest and clearest months to visit, with July to September being colder but also dry. It is wet in the rainforest from April-June and during November.

Back to top