The Southern Circuit: Tanzania Without the Queue of Land Cruisers

Most first trips to Tanzania go north. There are good reasons for that — the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater are extraordinary, and if you have one week and one chance, nobody sensible talks you out of them.

But the north is busy. In the Seronera valley in August you will share a leopard sighting with a dozen other vehicles, and the crater floor at ten in the morning is a queue. None of that makes the animals less remarkable. It does change what the day feels like.

The southern parks are a different proposition. Nyerere alone covers more ground than Belgium. Ruaha holds the largest lion population in the country. Between them they see a fraction of the visitors, and on many drives you will not pass another vehicle at all.

What you give up. Density, mainly. The northern parks concentrate animals in a way the south does not — the Serengeti plains in migration season are the highest concentration of large mammals anywhere on earth, and nothing in the south competes with that. You will work harder for sightings and you will have blank hours.

What you get. Space, and activities the north does not permit. You can walk in Nyerere with an armed ranger. You can take a boat down the Rufiji and watch hippo at eye level. Ruaha sits on the overlap between southern and eastern African species, so greater and lesser kudu turn up in the same afternoon alongside sable and roan.

Getting there. This is the part people underestimate. From Dar es Salaam, Mikumi is a four-hour drive and Nyerere is five to six. From Arusha they are a domestic flight away, which is why northern-based operators rarely push them. If you are landing in Dar, the southern circuit is on your doorstep and the northern one is not.

The honest recommendation: if it is your first safari and you have seven days, go north. If you have been before, or you have two weeks, or you would rather see fewer animals with nobody else watching — the south is the better trip, and it is the one we can put you in a vehicle for the same morning you land.