National Parks & Destinations

Arusha National Park

Northern Tanzania, Tanzania

Arusha National Park is a compact 137 km² park about 25 km east of Arusha city, gazetted in 1960 around the Ngurdoto Crater and later extended to include Mount Meru and the Momella Lakes. It packs three distinct landscapes into a small area: the grassy floor of Ngurdoto Crater, a chain of shallow alkaline lakes in the north-east, and the forested slopes of Mount Meru, Tanzania's second-highest mountain at 4,566 m. The forest holds black-and-white colobus and blue monkeys, bushbuck and forest birds such as the Narina trogon, while giraffe, buffalo, zebra and warthog graze the open ground. The Momella Lakes carry large numbers of waders and, seasonally, flamingos. Because the park has no lions, it is one of the few places on the northern circuit where ranger-led walking safaris and canoeing on the lakes are routine. It is also the base for the four-day Mount Meru climb from Momella Gate.

Gombe Stream National Park

Western Tanzania, Tanzania

Gombe Stream National Park protects 35 km² of steep, forested valleys rising from the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in Kigoma Region. Established in 1968, it is the smallest of Tanzania's national parks and is accessible only by boat from Kigoma town. The park's chimpanzee population, studied continuously since 1960, is its main draw. Trekking with a guide through the valleys usually leads to one of the habituated communities, and time with the animals is limited to an hour to reduce disturbance. Leopards are the main predator in the park, and hippos, small antelope and around 200 bird species are also present. The forest is a mosaic of evergreen valley woodland and grassy ridges, and a walk to the Kakombe waterfall or to Jane's Peak gives views across the lake to the Congo. Accommodation is limited to a lodge and TANAPA bandas on the lakeshore, so numbers are small and advance booking is needed.

Katavi National Park

Western Tanzania, Tanzania

Katavi National Park covers 4,471 km² of western Tanzania, about 40 km south of Mpanda. It began as a game reserve, was gazetted as a national park in 1974 and was extended to its present size in 1997. The park is built around the Katuma River and the seasonal floodplains of Lake Katavi and Lake Chada, which are broad grassy expanses for most of the year. Its reputation rests on the late dry season, when the Katuma shrinks to a chain of pools and hundreds of hippos crowd into the remaining mud, with crocodiles retreating into riverbank caves. Very large herds of buffalo, together with zebra, giraffe, elephant and their attendant lions, gather along the same water. Katavi is one of the least-visited parks in the country — around 1,500 international visitors in a year — because access is by charter flight or a long unpaved drive. Camps are few and offer game drives and walks with little other traffic.

Kitulo National Park

Southern Highlands, Tanzania

The 'Garden of God' — a highland plateau that flowers with orchids after the rains.

LAKE MANYARA NATIONAL PARK

Mafia Island

Pwani, Tanzania

Mafia Island lies in the Indian Ocean off the Rufiji delta, about 130 km south of Dar es Salaam, and is reached by a short scheduled flight. The main island covers 394 km² and had 66,180 residents in 2022, most living from fishing and small-scale farming around the town of Kilindoni. The island's southern and eastern waters form the Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania's first multi-use marine park, established in 1995 and covering 822 km². Its core is Chole Bay, a deep, reef-sheltered anchorage dotted with islets and sandbanks, where the diving and snorkelling are concentrated. Off the west coast a resident population of whale sharks is seen from around October to March, and swimming with them is the island's best-known activity. On Juani Island the ruins of Kua, a Swahili trading town, and on Chole Island the remains of a nineteenth-century settlement give historical interest. Lodges are few and small, so the island stays quiet compared with Zanzibar.

Mahale Mountains National Park

Western Tanzania, Tanzania

Mahale Mountains National Park covers 1,650 km² on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in western Tanzania. Research began in 1979 and the park was established in 1985; it is one of only two protected areas for chimpanzees in the country and holds the larger population. The park has no roads or internal infrastructure — the only way in and out is by boat, usually after a charter flight from Arusha or Dar es Salaam. The park is explored on foot. Daily treks with a guide lead into the lower forest to find the habituated chimpanzees; other primates include red colobus, blue and red-tailed monkeys, and the forest holds forest species such as bushpig and leopard. The upper slopes carry montane forest and grassland, and the eastern side, drier miombo woodland. The lakeshore in front of the camps has sandy beaches and clear water, and afternoons are typically spent swimming, kayaking or fishing. The park recorded 1,074 visitors in 2012, which gives a sense of how few people share it.

Menai Bay Conservation Area

Zanzibar, Tanzania

The protected bay off the south-west coast — sandbanks, reefs and the Safari Blue day.

Mikumi National Park

Eastern Tanzania, Tanzania

Mikumi National Park lies about 283 km west of Dar es Salaam on the surfaced A7 highway to Iringa, which crosses the park and makes it the most accessible wildlife area from the coast. Established in 1964, it covers 3,230 km² and borders the former Selous Game Reserve, now Nyerere National Park, to the south, so that the two form a single ecosystem. The heart of the park is the Mkata floodplain, an open grassland with scattered acacia, baobab and palm that is often compared to the Serengeti. Elephant, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, eland and lion are seen on the plain, and the hippo pools near the main gate are a reliable stop. More than 400 bird species have been recorded. The Uluguru and Udzungwa ranges frame the horizons, and Malundwe Mountain at 1,290 m is the park's highest point. Mikumi suits short trips from Dar es Salaam and combines with Udzungwa Mountains National Park for forest hiking and waterfalls.

Mkomazi National Park

Tanga Region, Tanzania

Dry savannah under the Pare and Usambara ranges, with black rhino and wild dog sanctuaries.

Mnemba Atoll

Zanzibar, Tanzania

A private island ringed by the island's best-known reef, dived and snorkelled from Matemwe.

Mount Kilimanjaro National Park

Northern Tanzania, Tanzania

Kilimanjaro National Park protects the upper slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, from the montane forest belt above about 1,820 m to the 5,895 m summit. It was established in 1973, opened to the public in 1977 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987; it covers 1,688 km² in Kilimanjaro Region, near the town of Moshi and roughly 300 km south of the equator. The park exists chiefly for climbing. Seven designated routes — Marangu, Machame, Lemosho, Shira, Rongai, Umbwe and the Northern Circuit — lead through the forest and moorland to the summit crater, and every group must be accompanied by a licensed guide and registered porters. Around 50,000 people enter the park each year, and in 2012–13 some 16,400 attempted the summit. The forest belt holds blue monkeys, colobus, bushbuck and duiker, with elephant, buffalo and leopard present but rarely seen. Day walks from Marangu Gate to the Mandara Huts and the Maundi Crater give non-climbers a taste of the mountain.

Nyerere National Park

Southern Tanzania, Tanzania

Nyerere National Park was created in 2019 from the northern and eastern part of the Selous Game Reserve and named after Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's first president. At 30,893 km² it is the largest national park in the country, comparable in size to Belgium, and it lies roughly 200 km south-west of Dar es Salaam by road, with several airstrips for fly-in safaris. The park is defined by the Rufiji River, Tanzania's largest, which spreads into a network of lakes and channels north of Stiegler's Gorge. Boat safaris among hippos, crocodiles and riverside birdlife are the signature activity, alongside walking safaris and fly camping, which the former reserve's regulations allowed and the park has retained. Wildlife includes lion, leopard, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest and one of Africa's most significant populations of African wild dogs. Elephant numbers fell by about two-thirds between 2009 and 2013 through poaching; national park status was intended to strengthen protection. The Julius Nyerere hydropower dam at Stiegler's Gorge, completed in the 2020s, sits within the park.

Nyerere National Park (Selous)

Southern Circuit, Tanzania

Nyerere National Park is the photographic-safari portion of the old Selous ecosystem, gazetted in 2019 and managed by TANAPA. It takes in the Rufiji River corridor and the lakes north of it — Tagalala, Manze, Nzerakera and Siwandu — where most of the lodges of the former Selous northern sector stand, so operators still commonly describe it as "the Selous". The river gives Nyerere a character unlike the northern parks. Boat trips drift past sandbanks packed with crocodiles and pods of hippo, with skimmers, fish eagles and carmine bee-eaters along the banks; guided walks and overnight fly camps are part of the standard programme. Game drives run through miombo woodland, palm-fringed lakeshores and open floodplain, with lion, elephant, giraffe, buffalo and good chances of African wild dog. At 30,893 km² the park is enormous and lightly visited outside the lake sector. The dry season from June to October concentrates animals on the water; the long rains from March to May close many camps.

Ruaha National Park

Southern Tanzania, Tanzania

Ruaha National Park lies about 130 km west of Iringa in south-central Tanzania. It was gazetted in 1964 from the southern part of the Rungwa Game Reserve and, after the Usangu wetlands were added in 2008, covers 20,226 km², making it one of the largest national parks in Africa. It is named after the Great Ruaha River, which runs along its south-eastern boundary and is the focus of game viewing. The park sits where the East African savanna meets the miombo woodland of southern Africa, so it holds both greater and lesser kudu, sable and roan alongside the more familiar plains species. Lion numbers are high — the park has been a Lion Conservation Unit since 2005 — and leopard, cheetah and wild dog are present. Elephant numbers fell sharply through poaching between 2009 and 2015 but remain substantial. More than 570 bird species have been recorded. Granite kopjes, baobab-studded hills and sand rivers give the landscape its character. Access is by road from Iringa or by air to the Msembe and Jongomeru airstrips, and most visitors stay in a handful of camps along the river.

Rubondo Island National Park

Lake Victoria, Tanzania

An island park in Lake Victoria — forest, shoreline and introduced chimpanzees.

Saadani National Park

Coast, Tanzania

The one park where the beach meets the bush — game drives and a boat safari on the Wami River.

Selous Game Reserve

Lindi/Morogoro, Tanzania

The Selous Game Reserve was first protected in 1896 under German rule, became a hunting reserve in 1905 and was named after Frederick Selous, the hunter and naturalist killed at Beho Beho in 1917. For most of the twentieth century it was Africa's largest game reserve at around 50,000 km², and UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1982, placing it on the danger list in 2014 after elephant numbers collapsed from about 109,000 in 1976 to some 13,000 by 2013. In 2019 the northern part along the Rufiji River — the photographic-tourism sector — was carved out as Nyerere National Park. The name Selous now refers to the remaining reserve to the south and west, roughly 19,000 km² of miombo woodland, seasonal rivers and wetlands managed by the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority and let mostly as hunting blocks. The reserve retains elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, sable and wild dog, but it has almost no photographic lodges or public roads, so visitors on safari itineraries are in practice in Nyerere rather than the reserve proper.

Serengeti National Park

Northern Tanzania, Tanzania

Serengeti National Park covers 14,763 km² of grassland, savanna woodland and riverine forest in northern Tanzania, stretching from the Ngorongoro highlands to the Kenyan border and Lake Victoria. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981 and forms the core of an ecosystem that also includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maswa, Grumeti and Ikorongo reserves, Loliondo and Kenya's Maasai Mara. The park is best known for the annual migration of some 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebra, which calve on the southern short-grass plains between January and March, move north-west through the Grumeti corridor in May and June, cross the Mara River in the north between July and October, and return south with the short rains. Resident wildlife is dense year-round, with more than 3,000 lions in the ecosystem, cheetah on the plains, leopard along the Seronera river and over 500 bird species. Seronera in the centre is the administrative hub with the main airstrip; lodges and mobile camps are spread across the southern, central, western and northern sectors.

Tarangire National Park

Northern Tanzania, Tanzania

Tarangire National Park covers 2,850 km² in Manyara Region, about two hours' drive south-west of Arusha on a surfaced road. Established in 1970, it takes its name from the Tarangire River, which winds the length of the park and is the only permanent fresh water in the surrounding ecosystem during the dry season. That single fact shapes a visit. From June to November, animals that have dispersed across the Maasai steppe converge on the river and the Silale swamp: large elephant herds, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, eland and oryx, followed by lion, leopard and cheetah. The park is known for its density of elephants and for the ancient baobab trees scattered across the grassland. In the green season the herds thin out but the birdlife — more than 550 recorded species — is at its best. Tarangire is usually the first or last park on a northern circuit and rewards a full day or an overnight stay in the quieter southern sector.

Udzungwa Mountains National Park

Southern Circuit, Tanzania

Rainforest walked rather than driven, with the Sanje Falls at its centre.