Must Visit National Parks in Tanzania

The Serengeti is where the great migration spends most of the year. Around 1.5 million wildebeest calve on the southern plains near Ndutu in January and February, move west through the Grumeti country in April and May, and cross north into Kenya's Maasai Mara from roughly July to October before heading south again. Fly in from Arusha, allow three nights, and choose a camp positioned for the months you are travelling.

Best Time: January - March, June - October

Ngorongoro is a conservation area rather than a national park, and Maasai families live and graze their cattle inside it alongside the wildlife. The draw is the crater, a collapsed volcano around 20 km across holding lions, elephants, buffalo and some of the last black rhino in northern Tanzania. Most people visit on a half day descent from the rim as part of a northern circuit drive.

Best Time: June - October

Tarangire is the baobab park. Old trees stand across the grass and elephants gather along the Tarangire River in large numbers through the dry months, roughly June to October, when animals from the surrounding land come in to drink. It is about two hours by road from Arusha, which makes it the easiest first stop on a northern circuit trip and a comfortable single night.

Best Time: June - October

Lake Manyara is small and green, a strip of groundwater forest between the Rift Valley wall and an alkaline lake. It is known for lions that rest up in the acacia branches and for flamingos on the shallows when water levels suit them. Most trips give it half a day on the drive between Arusha and the Ngorongoro rim rather than a full stay.

Best Time: June - October

This is a climbing park, not a safari one. Routes to Uhuru Peak at 5,895 metres take five to nine days, and the longer ones give you a better chance of reaching the top because you acclimatise as you walk. Trekking is busiest in January and February and again from June to October. Kilimanjaro International Airport is also where most northern circuit trips land.

Best Time: January - March, September - October

Most of the old Selous Game Reserve became Nyerere National Park in 2019, so older guidebooks and some tour listings still sell the same place under the Selous name. At 30,893 sq km it is the largest national park in Tanzania. Boat safaris on the Rufiji River and walking safaris are what set it apart from the north. It is a short flight from Dar es Salaam and deserves at least three nights.

Best Time: June - October

Ruaha is enormous, around 20,000 sq km, and sees a fraction of the visitors the northern parks do. Large elephant herds and one of Africa's more significant lion populations gather along the Great Ruaha River through the dry season. Access is by light aircraft from Dar es Salaam or Arusha, so budget for the flight and stay four nights to make it count.

Best Time: June - October

Arusha National Park sits half an hour from Arusha town, which makes it the one park you can fit into a spare day at either end of a safari. Mount Meru rises out of the middle of it and the three or four day climb is what many people use to acclimatise before Kilimanjaro. Expect giraffe, buffalo, colobus monkeys and flamingos on the Momella lakes, but no lions or rhino.

Best Time: June - October

Mikumi is the safari you can reach by road. It sits on the highway about five hours from Dar es Salaam, and the open Mkata floodplain holds lion, elephant, buffalo, giraffe and zebra. It borders Nyerere, so the two combine easily. This is the practical southern option if you want game viewing without paying for a charter flight.

Best Time: June - October

Mahale is one of two Tanzanian parks set aside for chimpanzees, on a forested shore of Lake Tanganyika with no roads inside it. You track the chimps on foot up steep forest trails, then swim off the beach in the afternoon. Getting there means a charter flight to Kigoma and a boat, so treat it as a serious add-on rather than a first trip park. June to October is drier.

Gombe, now officially Gombe National Park, is the patch of lakeshore forest where Jane Goodall began studying wild chimpanzees in 1960. It covers about 35 sq km and the habituated groups are still followed daily. You get there by boat from Kigoma and one or two nights is enough. Mahale is the wilder of the two chimpanzee parks, Gombe the easier.

Best Time: June - October

Jozani is the only national park on Zanzibar and the easiest wildlife stop in the country. A short walk through the forest usually brings you close to Zanzibar red colobus monkeys, which live nowhere else, and a boardwalk runs out over the mangroves. It takes about half a day from Stone Town or the east coast beaches and needs no safari vehicle.

Katavi is as remote as Tanzanian safari gets and very few travellers reach it. Late in the dry season the shrinking Katuma River leaves hippos packed into the last pools and buffalo herds a thousand strong out on the floodplains. It is charter flight only, from Arusha or Dar es Salaam, and works best combined with Mahale on the same trip.

Best Time: June - October

Udzungwa is for walking rather than game drives, and there are no safari vehicles inside the park. Forest trails climb to the Sanje waterfalls, which drop around 170 metres in three stages, and the range holds primates found nowhere else on earth. It is a few hours by road from Mikumi, so the two pair naturally for anyone driving the southern route.

Saadani is the one park where the bush runs down to the Indian Ocean. Elephants and buffalo come towards the beach, green turtles nest on the sand, and boat trips head up the Wami River past hippos and crocodiles. It lies between Dar es Salaam and Pangani, which makes it an easy two night stop on the way to or from Zanzibar.

Mkomazi is dry country below the Pare and Usambara ranges, and it holds a fenced rhino sanctuary along with a breeding programme for African wild dogs. Sightings take more patience than on the northern circuit, but it is quiet and it is close to Moshi, so it works as a day or overnight trip for anyone already at Kilimanjaro.

Rubondo is a forested island in Lake Victoria of about 457 sq km, reached by light aircraft or boat from Mwanza. Chimpanzees released here decades ago now live wild in the forest, and there are elephant, giraffe and sitatunga antelope along with strong Nile perch fishing. Very few people come, so it suits a second or third trip to Tanzania.

Kitulo protects a high grassland plateau in the southern highlands and was gazetted for its plants rather than its animals, the first park in tropical Africa set aside that way. Around 350 plant species grow here, including dozens of ground orchids, and the flowering runs roughly December to April. Come for hiking and botany, not for game drives.

Saanane is the smallest national park in Tanzania, a rocky island of roughly two sq km in Lake Victoria, a few minutes by boat from Mwanza town. Impala, rock hyrax, monitor lizards and a lot of birds, and you can walk the whole island in an afternoon. A pleasant half day if work or a flight connection brings you to Mwanza.