This 7 Day Southern Tanzania safari starts from Dar es salaam and takes you to some of Africa’s best-kept wildlife secret: the southern parks of Tanzania, Mikumi National Park, Udzungwa Mountains, and the Mighty Ruaha National Park. Throughout this Southern Tanzania safari, you will be staying at comfortable lodges chosen for their authenticity and great location.
Start your southern Tanzania safari with a visit to the Mikumi. Mikumi National Park is one of Tanzania’s most popular parks due to its proximity to Dar es Salaam. Spend your safari days exploring the corners of Mikumi national park coming across many different kinds of wildlife in this beautiful park.
Experience southern Tanzania wilderness out of the confines of a safari vehicle with a hiking tour to the Udzungwa mountains national park, a hikers paradise containing Tanzania’s largest variety of primates.
Before ending your southern Tanzania safari with a visit to the unspoiled Ruaha National Park, the biggest elephant sanctuary in the country. The lifeblood of the park is the Great Ruaha River with its spectacular gorges. It is host to numerous plain animals and the predators that follow them – lion, leopard, hyena, wild dog and jackal.
What to Expect on this Southern Tanzania Safari
Depending on your arrival time at the Dar es Salaam airport, depart for Mikumi National Park, with a hot lunch stop along the way and arriving in time for an evening game drive. Mikumi is located 300 km for Dar es Saalam and is the most accessible park for those departing from Tanzania’s capital. Prominent features of the park are the Mikumi flood plain and the mountain ranges that rise on two sides of the park.
Mikumi National Park is home to buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, zebra, and python. The drive to Mikumi will take you through farms along the Uluguru Mountains and villages arriving at your lodge in the evening. Dinner and overnight: Mikumi Safari Lodge
Early breakfast at the lodge, around 7:30 am. Drive to the park for a full day Safari in Mikumi national park; visit the Mkata Chamgore and Mkata flood plain within Mikumi National Park, these are areas rich in game. Stop for a picnic lunch and later continue with the game viewing until late afternoon.
You can encounter elephants, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, hippo, crocodile, wildebeest, eland and Lichtenstein’s hartebeest. Lion and wild dogs are among the carnivores common here. Towards the southern end of the flood plain live families of yellow baboon. Over 300 species of birds have been recorded in the park. Many are Eurasian migrants who stay between October and April. Dinner and overnight: Mikumi Safari Lodge
After breakfast, drive to the Udzungwa mountains for a walking tour in this beautiful park enjoying its stunning natural beauty. Meet your guide and head out to the Sanje waterfalls for a 3 to 4 hours hike through the green forest. Picnic lunch will be provided.
Expect to see monkeys; including rare Iringa red Colobus and some very old and really long trees; some more than 200 years old. Explore the tropical forest till late afternoon. Return to camp for dinner and overnight: Mikumi Safari Lodge
0600 hrs – depart before sunrise for Ruaha National Park. You arrive in time for lunch at Ruaha Hill Top Lodge. At 1500 hrs go for an evening game drive in the park.
Ruaha National Park is Tanzania’s second-largest park and offers some of not only Tanzania’s but Africa’s wildest and most untouched wilderness. For those wishing to experience wild Africa, Ruaha is certainly not to be missed.
View some of Tanzania’s most exceptional wildlife from your 4×4 safari vehicles. Your guides will take you out in search of the big cats, wild dogs, roan antelope and Greater and Lesser Kudu for which the Ruaha National Park is famous for. Return to lodge for dinner and overnight: Ruaha Hill Top Lodge.
After breakfast at Ruaha Hilltop Lodge, head out for a full day safari in Ruaha National Park.
Ruaha National Park is an unspoilt wildlife park in central Tanzania. It occupies 10,000 sq km and carries 8000 tuskers making it the biggest elephant sanctuary in the country. The Great Ruaha River with its spectacular gorges flows along the parks’ eastern border and is host to hippo and crocodile.
The river is the park’s lifeblood and provides drink for waterbuck, reedbuck, and buffalo. This, in turn, attracts the predators: lion, leopard, hyena, wild dog and jackal. Plain animals thriving in the grasslands of the Ruaha include greater and lesser kudu, impala, sable and roan antelope, giraffe, zebra, dik-dik and Grants gazelle. Birds are plenty too- over 370 species have been recorded. Dinner and overnight: Ruaha Hill Top Lodge
After breakfast, go for one last safari in Ruaha National Park before returning to the lodge for a hot lunch and checkout. As an option, you could opt for a walking safari in Ruaha national park, accompanied by an experienced guide where you will have the opportunity to ‘touch the wild’!
Later in the afternoon drive to Iringa Town for dinner and your overnight: Neema Craft Hotel
After a relaxing morning and hot breakfast, you will take a detour to the Ismila Stone Age Site, famous after the discovery of Stone Age tools and fossilized bones that were discovered in 1951, before departing for Dar es Salaam. This is a long drive, 8 hours approximately, arriving in Dar es salaam late in the evening.
End of your Southern Tanzania Safari
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