When is Tarangire at its best?

Late in the dry season, roughly August to October. The river is the only reliable water for a long way and animals from a much wider ecosystem come to it. In the green season a great deal of the wildlife simply walks out of the park.

How does it compare to the Serengeti?

Fewer species overall and fewer vehicles. Better elephants — considerably better — and a more distinctive landscape because of the baobabs. Most people who go to both prefer the Serengeti; most guides prefer Tarangire.

Can we do a night drive?

Yes, from some of the lodges just outside the park boundary and in the adjoining concessions. Night drives are not permitted inside Tanzanian national parks, so anyone offering one "in Tarangire" means the edges.

One night gets you an afternoon and a morning drive, which is a real experience. Two nights lets you reach the south of the park, which almost nobody does and which is where the walking is permitted.

Tarangire National Park — safaris, wildlife and when to go

Tarangire is the northern circuit’s most under-rated park, and the one our guides pick when they have a day off. Its spine is the Tarangire River, which holds water when the surrounding country has none, and from July onwards the concentration of animals along it is extraordinary.

Elephant are the headline. In a good dry-season week you can watch herds of two and three hundred moving down to drink, families that have known each other for generations, calves running between the legs of aunts. The park also holds tree-climbing lion, large buffalo herds, fringe-eared oryx and gerenuk that you will not see further north.

Then there are the baobabs — thousands of them, some more than a millennium old, standing over the grass like something drawn rather than grown. In the late afternoon light they are the reason photographers keep coming back.

From our guides

Two nights inside the park beats one night at the gate. The southern reaches, past the swamps, get almost no day-trip traffic.

Why come here

Some of the largest elephant concentrations in East Africa from July to October
Ancient baobab country — visually unlike anywhere else on the circuit
Far fewer vehicles than the Serengeti or the Crater
Excellent birding, with over five hundred recorded species

The wildlife

Elephant in exceptional numbers during the dry season, along with lion, leopard, cheetah, buffalo, giraffe, zebra and wildebeest. Drier-country specials include fringe-eared oryx, gerenuk and lesser kudu. Python are sometimes seen in the sausage trees. The birding is outstanding — yellow-collared lovebird and ashy starling are near-endemic to this area.

When to visit

June to October is the park at its best, when animals from a much wider ecosystem are drawn to the river. November to May is greener and quieter, with better birding but far more dispersed game — a lot of the wildlife simply walks out of the park.