Game Reserves in Tanzania

Two reserves run as a single unit on the western edge of the Serengeti, covering close to 1,000 sq km. Migration herds move through on the way north, broadly May to July. This is the only entry here with lodges of international standard, the three Singita camps, and because it is reserve land rather than park land you can take night drives, walk with a guide and fly a balloon, none of which the Serengeti permits. Fort Ikoma airstrip is 3 km away. Top of the market on price.

Maswa runs along the southern boundary of the Serengeti across 2,764 sq km of open plain, thicket-covered hills and kopjes, with waterholes that hold game through the dry months. The migration passes through and lion and leopard density is high. TAWA runs it for both photographic tourism and trophy hunting in separate blocks, so ask which camp you are being sold. The photographic camps allow guided walks and night drives. Light aircraft from Kilimanjaro or Mwanza reach airstrips inside.

Small, roughly 80 sq km on the Serengeti's western corridor, and the easiest reserve on that side to reach by road rather than by charter flight. It sits 3 km off the Mwanza to Musoma highway at Lamadi, about 135 km from Mwanza. There is a tented camp inside plus public campsites, priced well below the Serengeti lodges. No hunting takes place here, so game drives, guided walks, cycling and birdwatching are all allowed, and Lake Victoria is 2.5 km away.

The famous one, and the most misunderstood. Selous was proclaimed in 1922 and made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, but in July 2019 its northern 30,893 sq km were carved out to become Nyerere National Park. What still carries the Selous name is the southern remainder, leased as private hunting concessions, with photographic use limited to a strip along the Rufiji, Ulanga and Matandu rivers. Accommodation is a rest house and campsites. For a safari you want Nyerere.

Tanzania's smallest game reserve at 15.39 sq km, on the northwestern edge of Dar es Salaam and reachable in an hour off the Bagamoyo or Morogoro roads. It is coastal forest, part of the Eastern Arc biodiversity hotspot and a BirdLife Important Bird Area, not a big game destination: expect baboons, vervet and colobus monkeys, bushbuck, suni, dik-dik and a long bird list. Walking trails, cycling and picnic sites, with no accommodation inside, so you stay in the city.

TAWA states plainly that the main activity at Moyowosi is trophy hunting, and the camps inside exist to serve it. The reserve is otherwise remarkable: 11,430 sq km of papyrus swamp and miombo in Kigoma Region, part of the Malagarasi-Muyovozi Ramsar site, Tanzania's first and the third largest in the world. It probably holds the country's biggest sitatunga population. There is no photographic safari product here, and the nearest town is Kibondo, 30 km from the headquarters.

Rungwa was gazetted in 1951 in Singida Region and has been recognised as a Lion Conservation Unit since 2005. It forms part of the Rungwa, Kizigo and Muhesi complex, roughly 45,000 sq km running alongside Ruaha National Park, which is why lion, sable, roan and greater kudu numbers here matter. It is used as hunting country and does not appear among the reserves TAWA promotes to visitors. There are no lodges. Ruaha is the bookable version of this landscape.

Uwanda, often called Uwanda Rukwa, covers 4,100 sq km of the Rukwa Valley in the southwest and takes in close to half of Lake Rukwa, whose level rises and falls sharply with the seasons. More than 400 bird species have been recorded and the lake holds a large crocodile population. It works as an extension of Katavi National Park rather than a destination: no camps, no lodges, no visitor circuit. Katavi next door is the practical choice, and even that needs a light aircraft.