Arusha National Park
79- This month104mm rain · 17°C
- Best monthFebruary
- From Arusha ~0.7h drive
- Our safaris here1
Gateway guide
Arusha
Nearly every northern safari begins and ends here. It is not a place you safari — it is the place you sleep before you do, and knowing that changes how you plan the first and last day.
Right now
How these places are looking in July
Tarangire National Park
100- This month3mm rain · 27°C
- Best monthJuly
- From Arusha ~2.9h drive
- Our safaris here4
Lake Manyara National Park
91- This month25mm rain · 24°C
- Best monthSeptember
- From Arusha ~3h drive
- Our safaris here3
Scores are computed from three years of rainfall and temperature for each park, and drive times from real coordinates — the same engine behind our safari intelligence. They update themselves. Nobody types them in.
Build in the arrival day
Long-haul flights land tired, and the drive to the first park is several hours. An itinerary that has you landing and immediately driving to Tarangire is technically possible and genuinely miserable. A night in Arusha costs you a day and buys you the whole first game drive actually being enjoyable.
Arusha National Park is underrated and close
It is forty minutes away, you can walk in it — which you cannot do in the Serengeti — and it has colobus monkeys, giraffe and Momella's flamingos. It is not the Serengeti and does not pretend to be. As a first morning, or as the last day before a flight, it is far better than sitting in a hotel.
The last day is usually wasted
Most evening flights leave late. People check out at 10am and spend eight hours waiting. A day room, a half-day in Arusha NP, or a coffee-farm afternoon turns dead time into the trip's quiet last chapter.
Put it into practice