Tanzania Highlights
Serengeti
In the language of the Maasai, the word "Serengeti" means "endless plain," and the name has come to represent the safari experience itself, evoking images of sweeping savannahs swarming with lion, wildebeest, and gazelle. The 14,763 sq. km park in Northern Tanzania reaches up to the Kenyan border and almost to Lake Victoria, and is home to more game animals than anywhere in the world.
Ngorongoro Crater
Located between the Serengeti and Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro is famous around the globe as an allusion to Eden. It is a 19 km wide volcanic crater - the largest unbroken caldera in the world - ringed with towering walls and sheltering forests, grasslands, fresh springs, a large lake, and a staggering abundance of animals. Wildlife congregates year round in the bowl of its sunken cone (610 metres deep), making it a microcosm of East African scenery and game.
Olduvai Gorge
Olduvai Gorge is in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and it is possible to see the famous discoveries of remains of early Man by archaeologists Mary and Louis Leakey.
Zanzibar
The Zanzibar archipelago, twenty-two miles off the Tanzanian coast, is made up of Zanzibar Island (or Unguja) and Pemba, along with around 50 smaller islands. It is famous both as tropical paradise, where all of your picture postcards of white palm-fringed beaches come to life, and as exotic "spice islands", with a romantic and torrid history.
The surrounding Indian Ocean offers warm turquoise waters, excellent reefs for snorkelling and diving, fantastic deep sea fishing, water sports and of course delicious fresh fish.
Mafia Island
Mafia is one of the most exciting big game fishing and adventure diving areas in the world. Horseshoe shaped Chole Bay is part of a protected marine park, studded with lovely beaches.
Chumbe Island
The world's first private "Coral Park", Chumbe Island won the British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow award in 2000. On a 20-hectare island just south of Zanzibar town, the park is acclaimed by experts as "one of the most spectacular coral gardens" to be found anywhere in the world.
Kilimanjaro and Meru
Despite the melting ice-caps, the flow of tourists ascending Africa's highest point has not diminished. People are drawn to one of the easiest high-altitude climbs in the world. One word of advice - dress in layers - you experience several climate changes during this trek.
Dar es Salaam
In many ways this is Tanzania's capital. It is the most populous and most energetic city on the mainland and many people's first stop on a trip to Zanzibar. Food and shopping are good here with establishments catering to a large expat population. The north shore resorts are beautiful and calm, whilst the city centre is a vibrant African metropolis.
Selous Game Reserve
The most popular park on Tanzania's Southern Safari Circuit, the Selous showcases what the south has to offer - isolation, vast expanses and copious wildlife. This is also largest game reserve in Africa.
Ruaha National Park
This is the jewel in the crown of Tanzania's Southern Circuit and a must for elephant lovers. The park is crammed full of baobab trees - the ancient-looking mystical trees that appear to be planted upside down - and has the largest concentration of elephants in Africa.