Top 15 Travel destinations in Tanzania to opt for Safari Vacation
With its rich biodiversity, beautiful landscapes, stunning wildlife and delightful nature, Tanzania attracts travellers from every corner of the world.
The uniqueness of each tourist places makes the Tanzania Safari Destinations more famous. The mesmerizing beauty of national parks, ecological diversity, viewing wildlife in game reserves, stunning view of birding, Mt. Kilimanjaro, greenery of mountains give opportunities to do a lot of things.
Are you making a plan for visiting the different Tanzania Safari Locations? Make a list for the Best Places To Visit In Tanzania to include in your planning as the best safari destinations in Tanzania. Here, we are going to give some information about the 15 travel destinations of Tanzania.
Serengeti National Park
With an area of 12,000 square miles, the Serengeti National Park is located in the northern side of Tanzania with its vast ecosystem. Serengeti means “endless plains” or “the place where the land runs on forever” in Maasai language. Established in the 1920, the park became national park in 1951.
Serengeti National Park gets the fame because of the highest population of lion and Greatest Migration all over the world.
In the migration, you can see millions of wildebeest, joined by two lakh zebras and 3 lakh gazelles. If you are lucky enough, you’ll see the predator hunting its prey in live. You can see different species of wild animals such as, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, Cape buffalos, antelopes, giraffes, zebras, African wild dogs etc.
The sunset view on this park is stunning. You can find 500 bird species like, secretary bird, ostrich, kori bustard, crowned crane, marabou stork, martial eagle, lovebirds, etc.
It will be a better idea, if you have planned for Serengeti National Park in the dry season, from July to October. Finally Serengeti national park is included in the list of UNESCO world’s heritage site.
Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro Crater is situated in northern side of Tanzania with an area of 8,292 square km. It is one of the largest calderas on the planet formed by the eruption of large amounts of magma from a volcano for a short time period. The Ngorongoro Crater is listed under the UNESCO heritage site.
Over 3 million years ago, there was a higher volcano than Mt. Kilimanjaro. The tallest volcano of that time exploded violently which gives birth to Ngorongoro crater.
It is one of the Best Places To Visit In Tanzania to view the wildlife. If you want to make the viewing of African big five successful, then you can spot black rhinos, the vulnerable species among the African big five. You can find thousands of wildebeests, zebras, elands, gazelles, elephants, lions, hyena and other animals. Approximately, there are 25,000 wild creatures in the caldera.
This crater is also a birding paradise with approximately 500 birds. You can find largest birds like Ostrich, Kori bustards, secretary bird and smallest bird like hummingbird.
With a high concentration of wildlife, it is one of the greatest wonders of the world. During January and February, the place turns into the calving place for the wildebeest. June to September is the best time for game viewing in this crater.
Arusha National Park
Located in Northern Tanzania, Arusha National park is situated between Arusha and Mount Kilimanjaro with an area of 552 sq km. It takes 1 hour from Kilimanjaro International airport and 45 minutes from Arusha town.
With outstanding wildlife diversity, this park is famous for highest population of Giraffe. You can see waterbuck, elephants, black and white colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, turacos, trogons, leopards and other animals.
For the wildlife game viewing, the time between Junes to October is the best time to visit. This is the best place for bird watchers in between November and April, as there are a lot of migratory birds you can see here. You can enjoy birding near Momella lakes within the Arusha National Park.
In Northern Circuit Of Tanzania, this park is the only park which offers walking safari. Other activities you can do are: Mount Meru hiking, canoe safari, picnicking, Monkey trekking and game drives.
Lake Manyara
Lake Manyara is located inside the Lake Manyara National Park, which is 330 square kilometre in size. The lake size is two-third of the park’s area or has a size of 200 square kilometres.
The alkaline lake is mostly famous for birding where you can see the perfect paradise for more than 400 bird species like pink flamingo birds, yellow-billed storks, herons, cockscrews, pelicans, cormorants, Ruppel’s Griffon, Verreaux’s eagle, Augar Buzzard, Peregrine falcons, etc.
Lake Manyara is also home for the hippopotamus where you can see tree climbing lions, herds of elephants in the Lake manyara national park. You can see other wild animals like giraffes, hippos, elephants, buffaloes, lions, zebras, antelopes and largest baboons in this region.
This region also offers some activities to do like Game drives, canoe safaris, cultural tours, shore side picnics, mountain biking, abseiling, and walking in forests.
For the birding, you can visit this lake in between November to June and July to October is the best time to visit in dry season.
Selous Game Reserve
Selous Game Reserve is the oldest and largest game reserve of Africa continent with an area of 54,600 square kilometres. It is located in the southern part of Tanzania and declared as a world heritage site in 1982. It is two times bigger than Serengeti National park and three times bigger than Kruger national park. It is also largest protected area in Tanzania.
As it is a reserve, there are no restrictions to walk across the forests. There are more hippos in the Rufiji River than other lakes.
The reserve has the highest population of African wild dogs all over the world. You can find elephants, cape buffaloes, wild dogs and crocodile with a larger amount in this park. You can also find waterbuck, zebra, impala and lions in this region.
You can see rare bird species like spur-winged lapwing, African wattled lapwing, The white-fronted bee-eater, The Pel’s fishing owl, African spoonbill and other different common species. April and May is the best month for birding tour.
July to October and November to December is the best time for enjoy the greenery and wildlife.
The Mahale Mountains
Mahale Mountains or Mahale Mountains National Park is famous for chimpanzees of more than one thousand. It is located in the western side of Tanzania and has a size of 1613 sq km. It is the only place of Tanzania where you can find both chimpanzees and lions together. The rugged landscape of Mahale Mountains is famous for Chimpanzee Trekking.
You can find colourful forest birds with chimpanzees like yellow baboons, red colobus, red-tailed vervet monkeys with bush babies, bush pigs, blue duiker, civet, hyrax and white-tailed mongoose.
Here you can do many activities like chimp tracking, hiking for “Nkungwe” highest point, camping, snorkelling, sports fishing and other water activities.
The chain of mountains, chimpanzees, forest flora and fauna will amaze you during your Tanzania Safari. May to October is the best time to visit this place.
Katavi National Park
As a third largest part of Tanzania, Katavi National Park covers 4,471 sq km. It is located southwest of Tanzania and east of Lake Tanganyika. It is named after “katavi”, a seeker and a legendary hunter. This park is also famous for unexploited national park of eastern side Tanzania.
You can find rare antelope species like sable, roan, etc. It gains the fame for highest population of hippo and crocodile located in Chada Lake. You can see buffalos, zebras, giraffes, hyena, leopard, etc in this park.
May to October is the best time to visit this park.
Lake Victoria
To honour the queen of England, the lake is named as “Lake Victoria”. It covers 59,947 sq km area. It is famous as world’s 2nd largest and largest tropical lake of the world.
With a volume of 2,424 cubic kilometres, it is the 9th largest continental lake of the world. The Kagera River is the largest river which flows into the lake.
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika lies on the western side of Tanzania. It is divided with 4 countries like Democratic republic of Congo, Burundi, Zambia and Tanzania where Tanzania has the largest share. As a second oldest freshwater lake of the world, and also second deepest and largest by volume. It is also world’s longest freshwater lake.
You can do many activities like snorkelling, scuba diving, sailing, swimming, and wakeboarding, kite surfing, and waterskiing.
With the ecological isolation, the lake is extremely cold. You can find 350 different fish species in the density of lake.
June to September is the best suitable time to visit this lake.
Kilimanjaro
Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest freestanding mountain of the world and tallest mountain of Africa with a height of 20000 ft. It was made up of three volcanoes namely, Mawenzi, Shira and Kibo. The last major eruption was happened 360000 years ago. It is also famous as “roof of Africa”.
You can find five different ecological zones during the hiking in different altitude of Kilimanjaro. The summit point name is “Uhuru” and for summit there are seven different routes.
On the lowest level of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tropical rainforest scenery is delightful Mt. Kilimanjaro is also famous as “Everyone’s Everest” because everyone can summit at the highest with a perfect preparation and guide.
To enjoy the pleasure of an achievement, new and old climbers from every corner of the world come for hiking to summit at the peak.
Mount Meru
Mt. Meru is located on the north side of Arusha town of Tanzania and also a dormant volcano.
With an altitude of 4562 metres; it is the second highest mountain of Tanzania and fourth highest mountain in Africa. It is 70 km far from Mt. Kilimanjaro and famous for the “warm up” for the trekkers before hiking for Kilimanjaro.
Olduvai Gorge
Olduvai Gorge is the steep land in the Great Rift Valley. It is about 48 km long. It is one of the pre-historic sites for human evolution in the world.
Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania is the place where the archaeologists Dr. Mary Leakey and Dr. Louis Leakey found the earliest human fossil of 2 million years ago was found by archaeologist.
Explore the Olduvai Gorge, the “Cradle of Humankind”, where paleoanthropologists found bones and stone tools of million years back.
Stone Town and Zanzibar Beaches
Zanzibar is a small island made up of pemba and Mafia Island with other islands. Zanzibar is a land of pre-historic Stone Age Island.
After getting tired in Tanzania safari, you need to relax and enjoy in Zanzibar Beach Holidays with palm tree and clear blue water.
To know about the stone age of Tanzania, you need to visit the Zanzibar, the town of Swahili tribe people of Tanzania. The island gives the proof of ancient history and culture of Stone Age.
Zanzibar is famous for famous spice plantations, cultural diversity and history.
Best time to visit Zanzibar is from June to October during cool and dry months.
Mafia Island
Mafia Island has a history of trading between East Asia and East Africa. The name “Mafia” derived from the Arabic name “morfiyeh”, which means “group” or “archipelago”.
This island is the best point for divers, natural lovers and adventurous spirits.
Scuba diving, fishing, snorkelling and other water sports are the fun activities this island can offer you.
You can see Monkey, squirrel, flying foxes and lizards on its coast.
Visiting on August to October is the best time for dry weather whereas September to March is whale shark season.
Pemba Island
Pemba Island is a part of Zanzibar Island or Archipelago. This is the largest Island among other archipelago island. It is also known as “Green Island”. People have profession of fishing, farming and agriculture.
Scuba diving and fishing opportunities attracts tourists to enjoy this island.
June to October is the best time to visit this island.
So, friends these are best Tanzania Safari Destinations with a stunning beauty and have uniqueness. Tanzania is the home for rich ecosystem and wildlife diversity. Don’t get bored in vacation and gear up to explore the stunning wildlife & landscapes of Tanzania.
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