If you’re thinking about planning a trip to Tanzania for a safari, to witness the Great Migration, or to relax on the beaches of Zanzibar, great! It’s absolutely amazing.
But if you’re still not quite sure what else you can do once you get there—and above all, how to plan an adventure like this—don’t panic!
In this article, we’ll explain everything!
Here are the five must-sees in Tanzania you absolutely shouldn’t miss
1. Track the Big Five in the Serengeti
If you visit Tanzania, you simply can’t miss going on a safari in Serengeti National Park, one of Africa’s best-known destinations. It has repeatedly been awarded the title of best national park in the world and is famous as the place where you can witness the world’s greatest wildlife spectacle, the Great Wildebeest Migration.
With more than a million animals living in this unspoiled savannah that covers more than 15,000,000 hectares in northwestern Tanzania, there’s no better place for a safari.
During your stay in the Serengeti, you’ll also have the chance to enjoy a game drive across the vast plains to spot all of Africa’s Big Five—leopards, lions, buffalo, elephants, and rhinos—as well as other rare animals that you may only find on this continent.
Be sure to pack binoculars or a telephoto lens for your camera so you can observe the animals from a distance. You won’t get very close to them because the Serengeti has a strict rule that forbids off-road driving in order to protect the animals.
Read also: Safari in South Africa: when to go to see incredible wildlife up close
2. Watch the Great Wildebeest Migration from a hot air balloon
As we’ve already mentioned, Serengeti National Park is one of the best places to witness the world’s greatest wildlife spectacle, the Great Wildebeest Migration, during which more than a million animals from the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem—especially wildebeest and zebras—move across the plains from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Masai Mara in Kenya in search of grazing land and water.
With millions of animals moving in unison across every kind of terrain, from open plains to rivers, you’re guaranteed to see plenty of action during this period, with predators hunting large animals, from lions and leopards to crocodiles.
If you want to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event, make sure to go between June and July. Unfortunately, the migration doesn’t follow a fixed calendar, so timing can vary and you’ll need to coordinate with your tour operators to make sure you’re there when it happens.
3. Go on a photographic safari around the Ngorongoro Crater
The Ngorongoro Crater is a vast volcanic caldera formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. What makes it so special is the richness of the vegetation on the crater floor itself, something quite unusual for a volcanic caldera.
When the volcano erupted, it collapsed in on itself, creating a broad floor up to 600 meters deep and covering more than 260 square kilometers. Because of this collapse, a nearby stream drained into the lake at the center of the crater, creating ideal conditions for animals to thrive and reproduce.
Here, you can spot all kinds of wildlife, including lions and even rhinos.
But what makes a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater so special is that the landscape is completely different from that of the Serengeti, while also offering incredible scenery: seeing these animals surrounded by high mountains and low clouds is a spectacle not to be missed.
4. Visit Lake Manyara and Tarangire
If you’re looking for national parks to explore outside the Serengeti ecosystem, Tarangire and Lake Manyara are among the best national parks in Tanzania, and we highly recommend visiting them while you’re here.
Both Tarangire and Lake Manyara offer different kinds of landscapes and wildlife that set them apart from the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater and make them well worth a visit. Tarangire is known for its abundance of elephants and baobab trees, with a hillier landscape than what you’ll find in the Serengeti.
Lake Manyara, on the other hand, is known for its high density of baboons and monkeys, as well as all the colorful bird species you can spot there. Since the area is generally more wooded, it’s a bit harder to track down large predators, which are often hidden high up in the trees for much of the time.
5. Relax on Zanzibar’s unspoiled beaches
One of the reasons to visit Zanzibar is to enjoy a pleasant and peaceful beach holiday, and there are no better beaches in Zanzibar than Nungwi Beach, located at the northern tip of the island.
There are many beaches in Zanzibar, but nothing compares to the white, powdery sand, the vivid blue water, and the remarkably clean shoreline of Nungwi. Nungwi Beach may not be as large as some of Zanzibar’s other beaches, but it’s not as small and crowded as many people think.
The sand is soft and powdery to the touch. The tide doesn’t affect Nungwi Beach as much as it does other beaches, so the water is perfect for swimming. And because there’s no pronounced low tide, you won’t see dead seaweed washed up on the beach as you do in Paje, making Nungwi one of the cleanest beaches of all.
Read also: When to visit the Serengeti? The best times of the year
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve looked at some of the most incredible places to visit in Tanzania. In any case, if you don’t feel like dealing with all the trip planning yourself, an organized tour might be exactly what you’re looking for.
If you’d like to learn more, take a look at our trip to Tanzania!
