The Tarangire River
The spine of the park and the reason it works. In the dry months it is the only permanent water for a long way, and the game concentrates along it in numbers that surprise people.
Tarangire National Park is the elephant park, and in the dry season it is not a close contest. As the seasonal pans across the wider ecosystem dry out, the Tarangire River becomes the only reliable water for a long way in any direction, and everything walks to it. Herds of several hundred elephant are ordinary here in September.
The park is also the best baobab country on the northern circuit. Those trees give Tarangire a silhouette nothing else in Tanzania has, and they photograph beautifully in the last hour of light. Beyond elephant, the dry season concentrates zebra, wildebeest, buffalo and the lion that follow them, plus fringe-eared oryx and gerenuk you will not find further west.
Two hours from Arusha makes Tarangire the natural first stop on a northern-circuit route, and it is one of the few parks here genuinely worth a full day rather than a drive-through. In the green season, from November to May, the herds disperse and the park empties out — quieter, greener, better for birds, and considerably cheaper.
Best time to visitJune to October, when the river is the only water left
The spine of the park and the reason it works. In the dry months it is the only permanent water for a long way, and the game concentrates along it in numbers that surprise people.
Tarangire holds some of the largest concentrations in northern Tanzania. Family groups of several hundred gather at the river in September and simply take their time.
Enormous, ancient and strange, and scarred where elephants have stripped the bark for moisture. They give the park a skyline no other northern park has.
In the south, wetter for longer than the rest of the park, which makes it good lion and buffalo country when everything else has dried out.
Full days pay off here. The southern reaches see far fewer vehicles than the northern circuit road near the gate.
Permitted in parts of the park with an armed ranger, which changes your sense of scale completely once you are out of the vehicle.
Over 500 recorded species. The green season, November to May, is when the migrants arrive and the park is at its emptiest.
Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Tarangire
Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Lake Manyara · Serengeti · Tarangire
Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Arusha · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Arusha · Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire
Arusha · Lake Manyara · Ngorongoro · Serengeti · Tarangire · Zanzibar