Tanzania
Tanzania is home to the Serengeti, which is renowned for its vast landscape and prolific wildlife. Here, every year, the largest animal migration on the planet takes place: in April, around 2 million animals travel North to the Mountain plains and return south in October. This is arguably the most impressive sight in the world of safaris and the best way to take advantage of it is by traveling with a mobile tented camp.
You will find below a list of our preferred lodges in Tanzania.
-
The Serengeti National Park forms part of a huge conservation area, encompassing the adjacent Ngorongoro Conservation Area, well as the Masai Mara in neighbouring Kenya. With no fences or man-made barriers, huge numbers of wildlife move freely throughout this area, constantly recreating an ageless natural cycle. The magnificent Serengeti is famed for its vast tree-less grasslands allowing for excellent wildlife sightings. The Park boasts 35 species of plains-dwelling game and prolific birdlife.
Grumeti Serengeti Tented Camp is set in the remote reaches of the Park, on a bywater of the Grumeti River, known for its wildebeest crossings and enormous Nile crocodiles. Tucked into a strip of riverine forest, guests thrill to the antics of spectacular pied colobus monkeys (found nowhere else in the Serengeti) and enjoy nocturnal serenades by orchestras of owls and bushbabies.
Every year between June and July, Africa’s annual Great Migration passes through Grumeti, and hundreds upon thousands of wildebeest, zebra and other herbivores cross the Grumeti River, risking the jaws of some of Africa’s largest crocodiles.
-
The vast grasslands of the renowned Serengeti National Park provide what many consider to be the quintessential African game viewing experience. Meaning ‘endless plains’ in the language of the Maasai, this land of immense open spaces is home to literally millions of large herbivores, as well as the accompanying carnivores. The Serengeti is renowned for having the largest concentration of migratory animals in the world, and is also famous for its large lion population.
The Serengeti National Park forms part of a huge conservation area, encompassing the adjacent Ngorongoro Conservation Area, as well as the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. With no fences or man-made barriers, huge numbers of wildlife move freely throughout this area.
The Serengeti and the adjacent Masai Mara are best known for hosting the annual Great Migration of wildebeest, during which almost two million animals move across the plains and woodlands. Often called the greatest wildlife spectacle on earth, this dramatic event is triggered by annual rainfall patterns that determine the availability of grazing. Tens of thousands of animals follow the seasonal rains, fording both the Grumeti and Mara Rivers in their search for fresh pastures, giving birth to their young en route.
-
Although it is one of Tanzania’s smaller wildlife enclaves, Lake Manyara National Park is a spectacular reserve that boasts an incredible diversity of terrain, as well as plant and animal species. Established specifically to protect the elephant herds that have made this area world renowned, the park provides an excellent and varied wildlife experience. An incredible array of habitats, as well as a wealth of biodiversity, is crammed into a relatively small area in Lake Manyara National Park.
Apart from the elephants, Lake Manyara is famous for tree-climbing lions, as well as the thousands of flamingos that inhabit the lake shore. Large herds of buffalo, cheetah, Maasai giraffe, hippo and impala can be encountered. The lake supports an incredible diversity of birds, particularly water fowl and migrants.
Lake Manyara is generally warm to hot throughout the year, with temperatures rising to above 35°C/95°F during the warmest months (September, October and January). The rainfall is seasonal, with two dry periods and two rainy periods during the year. Short, late-afternoon or evening thunderstorms occur in November and December, as well as from March to May. The dry periods last from June to October, as well as during January and February.
-
The pristine white beaches of Mnemba, surrounded by deep blue ocean, combine to make this intimate island your own private tropical paradise. Mnemba is inhabited only by guests and the staff taking care of them. While the dazzling sands and brilliant sunshine invite you to spend idle hours on shore, magnificent coral reefs create an underwater wonderland that lures you to explore the warm, crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean. Scores of snorkelling and diving sites form a gateway to a world of incredible sea creatures.
This exquisite private island with its white coral sand beaches and spectacular coral reefs is renowned as one of the world’s most romantic ocean destinations, offering a seclusion and rustic exclusivity unparalleled on the African coastline.
Set off the northeastern tip of Zanzibar and surrounded by a coral atoll, Mnemba is home to a staggering diversity of marine life. In an effort to protect and preserve these precious ecosystems, &Beyond has partnered with the Zanzibar government and the local fishing communities to have the atoll and its surroundings proclaimed the Mnemba Island Marine Conservation Area.
-
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) is an extensive highland area along the eastern arm of the Rift Valley, with the world-renowned Ngorongoro Crater as its focal point. Not a national park in the strict sense of the word, the NCA was established to conserve wildlife and other natural resources, as well as to safeguard the interests of indigenous people and promote tourism. Thus, guests on safari have the unique experience of seeing Maasai herdsmen whose cattle graze side by side with the tremendous variety of wildlife found in the area.
Unmatched for its natural variety, there are few places on earth where such a tremendous diversity of landscapes exist inside a region this size. Apart from its wildlife riches, the NCA is also of great archaeological importance, with the remains of some of mankind’s earliest ancestors discovered in the area.
The largest intact caldera in the world, the Ngorongoro Crater shelters one of the most beautiful wildlife havens anywhere. A permanent population of more than 30 000 animals inhabit a mere 260 km² (100 square miles) in the 600 m (2 000 ft) deep crater, making this one of the few places in Africa where guests stand a great chance of seeing the entire Big Five in the course of a single game drive.
-
The annual movement of wildebeest across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is one of the greatest spectacles in the natural world. Originating on Tanzania’s short grass plains of the southeastern Serengeti, the dwindling of the available grass is the impetus for this primal trek. The horizon fills with 1.5 million wildebeest,
200 000 zebra, 18 000 eland and 500 000 Thompson’s gazelle, relentlessly tracked by Africa’s great predators.Essentially, the wildebeest are taking advantage of the strongly seasonal conditions, spending the wet season on the southeastern plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania, and the dry season in the woodlands of the Masai Mara. The wildebeest give birth between January and March on the short-grass plains.
The Migration is rarely the same in terms of precise timing and direction, as local conditions influence grass growth. The wildebeest may therefore move off the open plains earlier in some years, and remain in the northern woodlands for longer in others. Typically, they head slowly northwest towards the western corridor of the Serengeti and the Grumeti River. From there, the herds move north before crossing into the Masai Mara. Here, they must ford another river, this time the Mara. The Migration remains on the productive Mara grasslands until the storm clouds gather in the south, and they return to their breeding grounds.
