Tarangire is the sixth largest national park in Tanzania and occupies 1,100 square miles to the southwest of Arusha. A place of widely diverse landscape and vegetation, it encompasses hills dotted with fascinating baobab trees, dense bush, granite ridges, river valleys, swamps, and high grasses. This varied landscape is also famous for the termite mounds that dot the landscape. The Tarangire River bisects the park and is the primary source of fresh water for wild animals during the annual dry season. As large Park, it is usually overlooked for the more popular Serengeti and is therefore less crowded. However, the ecosystem here is balanced by a localized migration pattern resulting in varied amounts of game-viewing outside of the dry season between June and October.

The Park sees the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem, and this is the only place in Tanzania where dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed. Best known for its impressive elephant population, Tarangire is home to large herds totaling nearly 2,500 individuals. It’s also known for its tree-climbing lions and there are also African pythons up in the boughs too. Plains game like migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest, and eland crowd the shrinking lagoons. Predators such as hyena, wild dog, leopard, and cheetah are not far behind.