Tanzania’s largest national park and one of Africa’s last great wildernesses — huge lion prides, rare wild dogs and baobab country that most safari-goers never see. Ruaha is for travellers who want the bush to themselves.
Ruaha is what the Serengeti was before the world found it. Tanzania’s largest national park sprawls across more than 20,000 square kilometres of baobab hills, sand rivers and miombo woodland in the country’s remote centre — and receives a fraction of the visitors of the northern circuit.
The wildlife is serious. Ruaha holds roughly a tenth of Africa’s lions, with prides twenty strong hunting buffalo along the Great Ruaha River. It is one of the continent’s most important strongholds for African wild dog, and one of few places where greater and lesser kudu overlap.
Elephants — East Africa’s largest population — dig for water in the dry riverbeds beneath baobabs a thousand years old. Leopard, cheetah, and striped and spotted hyena all thrive here. Sightings demand a little more patience than the north, and reward it doubly: whatever you find, you will likely have it entirely to yourself.
Ruaha is a fly-in park with a small number of intimate camps, best combined with Nyerere for a full southern circuit. We recommend it to second-time safari-goers, photographers, and anyone allergic to crowds.
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