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The Best Five Tanzania Tours Safari Destinations
Ask about perfect Africa wildlife
destinations and a Tanzania tours safari will be at or near the top of the list every
time.
But what about the national parks and game reserves within the country itself?
Which are the best to visit because they can't all be equally good.
Well, the top five list below provides the answers to that. It's been set up by
using objective travel diaries at the African Safari Journals website, my twenty
years of safari experience, forums, travel magazines and general consensus
within the Tanzania travel safari industry...
One of the best safari parks in
Africa bar none. The wildlife viewing on Tanzania tours here often borders on
the spectacular aided by the fact that the vegetation is predominantly grassland
which makes spotting animals from a distance considerably easier.
The grassland is also able to sustain a multitude of herbivores like wildebeest,
zebra and gazelle which in turn sustains a large population of predators to feed
on them so it's no surprise that the Serengeti is often referred to as "big cat
central". In the Masaai language Serengeti means "endless plain" which is very
close to the truth.
Two extraordinary events occur here that make it an even more remarkable place
to take Tanzania holidays. The annual wildebeest migration and the birth of
hundreds of thousands of wildebeest foals.
The migration occurs as the massive
herds of up to a million individuals begin their search for better grazing by
moving north. The exact timing is dependant on the seasonal rains but they
travel across the Serengeti en masse roughly between April and August.
In February and March, months before they begin their epic journey, the wildebeest
give birth within a six week period to hundreds of thousands of calves, taking
advantage of the sweet grazing available in the Serengeti at that time. They all
foal at the same time to cause a glut of prey opportunities for the predators
who make full use of the bonanza while they can.
Read Serengeti trip reviews »
To call the Ngorongoro Crater
amazing would be an understatement as it ranks as one of the wonders of the
natural world because it is so unique.
Formerly a mountain which stood as tall as Kilimanjaro it blew up in a volcanic
upheaval causing the crater floor to sink and form the largest intact caldera in
the world with walls 2200 metres high.
Once it had cooled the rich pasture and permanent water on the crater floor
began to attract wildlife and today around 30 000 individuals populate this
garden of Eden forming the most densely crowded game area in the world.
Here you will find a population of Tanzania's few remaining black rhinos and a
healthy collection of predators like lion, cheetah and the odd leopard and of
course the ubiquitous wildebeest, zebra and Thompson's gazelle.
What you won't find are herds of
elephant because they tend to prefer the forested highlands but the bulls do
sometimes venture to the crater floor. Also absent are giraffe who like the
acacia trees found higher up and impala, orynx and topi that favour the
grassland plains of the Serengeti.
Lake Magadi is an irresistible attraction to water birds like flamingos,
avocets, stilts and plovers which throng the shallows of this soda lake. An
excellent destination for any Tanzania tours.
Read Ngorongoro trip reviews »
3. Tarangire National Park Tanzania Tours
This park is all about solitude,
peace, quiet and elephants. There are vast herds of the pachyderms here
sometimes numbering up to six hundred and also some really big buffalo herds.
There are less tourists on Tanzania tours here because many of them stick to
the Serengeti, Ngorongoro circuit to the north. But the
Tarangire National Park is a gem if you visit at the right time.
The dry season from June to September is the best for wildlife viewing because
that is when thousands of animals congregate to drink the waters of the
Tarangire river while they tend to disperse during the wet season because there
is water elsewhere.
The birdlife here is also
exceptional with over 550 species recorded. Your chances of spotting python seem
to more than even for some or other reason maybe because they have taken to
climbing the trees in the area.
Panoramic views of savannah grassland punctuated by acacia and baobab trees make
this an extremely picturesque park. Avoid it during the months of April and May
which is when the heavy rains fall.
Read Tarangire trip reviews »
4. Lake Manyara National Park
Ask anyone who has been on Tanzania
tours to Lake Manyara and they will probably tell you about the
amazing tree climbing lions who choose to sleep off the heat of the day on a
branch rather then on the ground like other lions.
Also the amazing birdlife that can be found around this lake like cormorants,
pelicans, storks, Egyptian geese, flamingos and huge flocks of quelea. The well
known environmental writer Duncan Butchart recommends that "if a first-time bird
watcher to Africa visit only a single reserve in Tanzania, then this surely must
be it".
You will also find some rarer
species here like the Olive baboon and Sykes monkey troops that lord it over the
forest and also all the usual suspect like elephant, crocodile, hippo, buffalo,
antelope and leopard.
5. Ruaha National Park
This park is one of the country's best
kept secrets and if the Tanzania tours regulars could have their own way
that's the way it would stay so that they could keep its seclusion and isolation
all to themselves.
But the secret is out and more and more people are visiting the countries second
largest national park to immerse themselves in the varied landscape of wild fig
and baobab trees and the excellent wildlife spotting opportunities, most notably
of which is packs of wild dog.
Ruaha also has a number of fearsome lion prides capable of reducing a large male
buffalo to a skeleton in a few hours and an impressive tally of antelope
species: Grant's gazelle and Lesser Kudu at the south of their ranges and sable,
roan and greater kudu to name a few.
Your chances of seeing elephant on a Tanzania tours safari here are excellent as there
are more than 12 000 of them resident here and for the birders there are a high
number of resident and migratory species available to see.
Read Ruaha trip reviews »
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