2 days Saadani in Two Days
One night on a coast that is also a game park. A drive on arrival, a boat up the Wami the next morning, and back to Dar by evening.
Wildlife & Coast
Mikumi & Udzungwa
Savannah on the first day, rainforest on the second: the two parks sit an hour apart and could not be less alike.
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At a glance
- Destinations
- Mikumi National Park · Udzungwa Mountains
- Best for
- Wildlife safari, Hiking
- Travel style
- Mid-range · Drive
- Activity level
- Moderate — walking days on forest and mountain paths
- Best time to travel
- June to October usually balances drier Mikumi game drives with manageable paths to the Udzungwa waterfalls. Recent rain affects the forest walk and waterfall flow; take footwear for slippery ground in every season.
- Start and end
- Starts and ends in Dar es Salaam
Why this journey
- A full game-driving day at Mikumi
- The Sanje falls hike in Udzungwa — around 170 m in three stages
- Primates that live nowhere else on earth
- Over 400 bird species between the two parks
- Three days, both parks, one road
Day by day
Mikumi and Udzungwa share a boundary road and nothing else. One is open floodplain you drive across; the other is Eastern Arc forest with no roads at all, where the Sanje waterfall drops in three stages.
Day 1 — Dar es Salaam to Mikumi National Park, Maasai visit
Early morning pickup from your Dar es Salaam hotel and departure to Mikumi, arriving in time for lunch. After lunch and a short break at camp, a visit to a Maasai village to learn about customs and traditions. The Maasai are a pastoralist community whose herding still shapes this landscape.
Stay Camp Bastian Meals Lunch & Dinner
Day 2 — Full day at Mikumi, then the Udzungwa Mountains
After breakfast with a packed lunch, full-day game drives. Mikumi's vegetation includes woodland, swamp and grassland with two water holes, Mkata and Chamgore. Expect elephants, lions, wild dogs, zebras, hyenas, buffalo, wildebeest and crocodiles. Evening transfer to Udzungwa Mountains National Park.
Stay Udzungwa Forest Lodge Meals Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Day 3 — Hiking Udzungwa to Sanje Waterfall, back to Dar
After breakfast, drive to the Udzungwa Mountain gate for hiking. You may see the Mangabei and Udzungwa red colobus monkeys if you are lucky. After lunch, swim at the Sanje waterfalls, then transfer back to Dar es Salaam, arriving late evening.
Meals Breakfast & Lunch
Stay and travel
Comfortable mid-range lodges and tented camps, inside the parks wherever the route allows.
A 4×4 with a roof hatch and a window seat for everyone, driven by your guide throughout.
Camps fill, and roads change with the rains. Where something has to change we substitute at the same level and tell you before you travel, not after.
Included and excluded
What is included
- Every activity named in the day-by-day
- Accommodation as listed, or a similar alternative if a camp is full
- Meals as noted against each day
- Transfers between the agreed pick-up and drop-off points
- Park, reserve and conservation area fees
- An English-speaking Tanzanian driver-guide
- A 4×4 with a roof hatch, or the vehicle the route calls for
- Drinking water through the day
- Government taxes
- TANAPA armed ranger where the park requires one
Not included
- International flights, airport taxes and visa fees
- Travel, medical and baggage insurance
- Personal spending — drinks, laundry, telephone
- Tips for your guide and crew
- Anything not listed as included
Practical information
- Activity level
- Walking days on forest and mountain paths, some of them steep and often wet underfoot. Ordinary walking fitness is enough.
- Visas, insurance and tipping
- A visa is arranged before travel or on arrival. Travel and medical insurance is a condition of booking. Tipping is customary and we will suggest a range rather than set one.
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Every route here can be changed
Tell us what you would keep, what you would drop and how long you have. We will send back a version that is yours.