Destinations
The famous national parks in Northern tourism circuit
Tanzania, the land of wildlife safaris offers a lifetime holiday travels experience in 22 National parks, 19 game reserves, 13 Wildlife management areas and 2 Ramsar sites; it touches something deep within you and can be an affordable gateway that will never be forgotten.
Serengeti National Park
Is Tanzania oldest park and UNESCO world heritage site, with annual wildebeest migration, endless plain, top class wildlife viewing throughout the year, superb for spotting predators, big five, black rhino in game drive and hot air balloon. Serengeti’s scenery is renowned for its grassland plains in the southeast. The northern part is more hilly and rocky.
To the west, valleys, rivers and forest can be found. Several areas in the Serengeti are dotted with ‘koppies’, granite outcrops rising up from the plains. It’s an immense landscape and quite stunning – big sky country that feels like untamed wilderness.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is stunningly beautiful. Aside from the well-known Ngorongoro Crater, Empakaai and Olmoti craters are scenic highlights as well. Both the Ngorongoro and Empakaai craters regularly have flocks of flamingo. The forested crater rim of the Ngorongoro crater is in stark contrast with the crater floor, which consists mostly of grassland. Another feature on the crater floor is Lerai forest, a beautiful, atmospheric, yellow fever tree forest. The star attraction of the Conservation Area is the Ngorongoro Crater: an extinct volcano teeming with wildlife. All major animals are easily seen.
The only exception is giraffe, which is present in the Conservation Area, but not in the crater because of the steep descent. elephant are common, including some very big tuskers, and all the big cats are prominent as well. With game drive other activities include culture visit to Masai village, walking safaris, photographic and filming, bird watching, archeological tours to Olduvai gorge and Laetoli footprint, hiking to Ngorongoro highlands and forest reserve – Olmot crater, Olkarien gorge, Nasera rocks, shifting sands, Lake Masak, Oldonyo Lengai and Lake Natron.
Tarangire National Park
The park’s dominant feature is the Tarangire River. Although it gets very dry, the park is relatively thickly vegetated with acacia shrubs and mixed woodland. Most memorable are the huge baobab trees dotted around in big numbers, incredible concentration of elephant, excellent bird watching and stunning scenery.
The south and east of the park has a big seasonal swamp network, which is an important water catchment area. With game drive, hot air balloons can be combined during safari. The park is famous for migratory movement of animals within grater Tarangire ecosystem, in the dry season animals are attracted to the Tarangire river between June and October which make it top general wildlife viewing in the dry season.
Lake Manyara National Park
Lake Manyara is a shallow, alkaline lake at the base of the Western Rift Valley escarpment. The park has a remarkable variety of habitats in a small area. The park entrance leads to a beautiful groundwater forest. Other habitats include the grassy floodplain, rocky escarpment and acacia woodland, all of which can be covered in a half-day visit.
Deeper into the park a visit to the hot springs (Maji Moto) with different types of wildlife, the park is famous for tree climbing lions, pink hued flamingos. With day game drive other activities include canopy walking (tree top walkway), canoe safaris, walking safaris, bird watching, night game drive
Arusha National Park
Is the closest park to Arusha town and famous for black and white colobus monkey. The park’s appeal is mainly its scenery. The habitat diversity spans from montane (mountain) rainforest to moist savannah to alpine moorland. The most prominent landmark is Mount Meru 4566m asl.
Other highlights are a massive extinct volcano and several scenic Momela lakes, with Mount Kilimanjaro in the background on a clear day, Ash cone, tropical forest glades, Ngurdoto Crater, fig tree are just a few. The park provide tour activities like game drive, walking safaris, canoeing, horse riding and mountain climbing.
Mkomazi National Park
Set below the slopes of the spectacular Usambara and Pare Eastern Arc Mountain ranges, and overseen by the snowcapped peak of Kilimanjaro, Mkomazi has particular scenic appeal and a sense of immense space. It is a classic dry-country reserve consisting of scattered grey-green scrubby bushes interspersed with savannah woodland and grassland.
It is home of large heads of giraffe, eland, hartebeest, gazelles, fringe – eared oryx, lesser kudus, gerenuk, Zebra, buffalos, elephant, different more than 400 types of birds species and vital refuge of black rhino and sociable African wild dogs
